Dicta Prius
by hangmeuptodry
Summary: "I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven
1. Discovering

**A/N: **I do not own Naruto, but if you think Sasuke's a bit out of character, I own that bit.

**Title: **Dicta Prius

**Summary: **Companion to Tempus Fugit. "I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." **—**SasuSaku.

**Genre: **A little angsty, Hurt/Comfort, and a smidgen of Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku, Kakashi and Sakura, Teacher/Student Bond, and "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" NaruSaku

**Status: In**complete. This will probably be a two-shot.

* * *

_"Sakura, come. We just got a shipment of strawberries and I saved some for you. Kami-sama knows how you love them"_

_The smile on her face was hesitant, but thankful._

_A lot of her smiles were like that these days._

_Sasuke couldn't remember the last time one had reached her eyes._  
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He couldn't tell you when he had taken to watching Sakura as she went through the market place. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone. It was no one's damn business but his own.

He couldn't even really admit it to himself, if we were trying to get technical here.

Sasuke could seemingly disappear when he wanted, whenever he wanted. And right now, all he wanted to do was check on Sakura. Here he was, on the rooftop of a humble dango stand, making sure not a damn person could see him.

Bottomless black eyes watched a pink haired girl's every move and narrowed when they witnessed a pale eyed Hyuuga approach his teammate.

_Tch. As if we could still be considered teammates. Stupid girl. _

Sasuke remembered a time where her animated hand gesturing that she called "talking" was a common sight. Now, Sakura was a lot more muted, but wiser and more satisfying to experience.

A bit like the expensive, aged sake her teacher liked to drink so much.

She gave shorter laughs to funny jokes and smiled in a way that seemed almost tentative and wistful**—**like she had some sort of alternative view of the world from everyone else. She wore her hair to the middle of her back and, when not in her doctor's uniform, she wore a long sleeved navy top and simple short beige skirt with her knee high black boots.

She didn't even try to look the part of a shinobi anymore unless she was training.

She was a total stranger.

Sasuke couldn't tell you when he had started to notice Sakura's presence. When he had craved a petite, pink haired girl that came up to his chin when they stood close together. When he missed the fresh basket of tomatoes that would show up on his counter every Wednesday. When he smirked at the thought of the vanillafloral_somethinglight_yet sweet scent that seemed to permeate through her pores.

All he could say was that she was_ long_ gone by that time.

* * *

_"Why didn't you come to dinner on Friday? The dobe wants to know "_

_"Tell Naruto I had work to do, Sasuke-kun."_

_"Hn."_

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_._

That had been back when she still called him Sasuke-kun.

That had been 8 months ago.

Now, he was lucky if she said his name.

Not that they ever talked.

She lived as a borderline hermit.

But why?

You can't say he never tried to find out.

Sakura hadn't been to a single team outing in 9 months. She didn't even spend her birthday with them.  
He had watched months ago through a window on the last floor of the hospital as she blew out the candles of a cake her staff bought her as they stood around her office, singing "Happy Birthday".

Contrary to what you may have heard, Sakura didn't get visited in the hospital, or walked home on late nights because she was too exhausted to be alone.

She wasn't a kid anymore.

If she was too exhausted to leave the hospital, she slept on the couch in her private office. If she wanted to see any of her friends, she expected them outside of her work domain.

Her expectations had been changed long ago and no one had bothered to change them back.

He thought about these facts grimly.

Sasuke took one more look at her sleeping figure and left.

* * *

"I miss Sakura-chan. When is she coming back?"

Naruto had grown a tad more muted as well, but only when it came to speaking about Sakura. You could almost taste the longing in his tone.

But he asked about her return as if she were on some kind of extended vacation out of Fire Country.

She was still in Konoha, _dammit_. Just a few blocks away at the Kami forsaken hospital.

The thought never failed to make his scowl sink even further.

"I mean, I know she's important and all! She's our Sakura-chan. Beauty, brains, and strength," Naruto fisted a large, tan hand at this and gave a goofy grin, pride unmistakable in his eyes," But I haven't seen her in a while."

Kakashi, who was reclined on the same tree as he and Naruto, had all but put his famous orange book away. The man hadn't flipped a page since Naruto spoke Sakura's name. His right eye drooped even lower, in an almost sad expression. Sasuke thought the expression sort of fit with the chill that was starting to set in around Konoha. Winter was late this year, among other things.

"I'm gonna go visit her. I hope she's not busy."

Sasuke looked as Naruto stood up, bright orange jacket tied around his waist while he pumped the fist in the air, despite the crisp breeze and sprained wrist he was determined on not agitating.

"I mean, I could even be admitted as her patient!"

He laughed, hopeful and bright and everything that Naruto was.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and his mouth formed a small frown.

Is that what they had to resort to?

Relying on_ injuries _in order to see a teammate?

Screw it.

"Dobe."

Naruto looked back down at Sasuke.

"Don't try and stop me, te-"

"Wait up."

Kakashi's eyebrow rose into his headband.

"Whoa, Teme. Did you break something in your head? You hate the hospital!"

Naruto proclaimed this in his way, scrambled arms and jumbled speech at high volumes.

"Hn. Let's go."

It's about time Sakura checked on his eyes.

* * *

"I'm looking for Sakura-chan! Where is she?"

The secretary looked up at Naruto, but she might as well have been looking down. With an utter look of disdain, she stared at the blonde ninja. Whether or not he was ignorant of the way some people looked at him once he yelled for Sakura, the Uchiha had no idea.

Sasuke didn't recognize the secretary, but then again, she might've always had this shift. He never peeked into the hospital at this time anyway.

Looking at the directory board to his right, the spotlessly shined sign told him what he already knew.

Sakura's office was on the fifth floor.

It seemed Naruto hadn't visited her for so long that he forgot that fact.

"Naruto?"

Said boy's body whipped around to a perplexed voice.

Sasuke was already looking at her.

Sakura, clad in her black skirt and heels, donned her doctor's coat. He could see the outline of a sleeve to the crimson blouse she was wearing.

He already knew she was a vision in red.

Her hair, wavy and messy, told him she ran home after waking up on the couch in her office, took a quick shower, and ran back to the hospital.

"What are you doing here?"

She took slow steps towards his teammate and broke out into a smile. More hopeful than the others he had seen.

When he had returned, Sasuke made sure to take note of the new dynamics in Naruto and Sakura's relationship. He brought out something in her that others could not. The grin she threw at Naruto the day he had walked through the gates of the village carrying half of Sasuke's weight was a sight for sore eyes.

And Sasuke knew a few things about sore eyes.

The twitch of her lips was so wide the corners of her eyes crinkled so cutely. The emerald orbs glistened with the shine of unshed tears. A perfectly slimmed heart shaped face stretched with her smile and revealed a dimple in her right cheek. And with the angle of the sun, he had been close enough to peek from under the cage of bangs he had at the time, he could see a splatter of freckles along the bridge of her nose and further across her face.

Not that he noticed at the time or anything.

Naruto's arms pulled her into a hug, swinging her in the air like a laughing rag doll, only stopping when he cried out in pain from his injured wrist.

"Come with me. I'll fix you up."

Slinging his left arm around her shoulders, Sakura leaned into his touch and walked down the hallway to a free examination room.

Sasuke could seemingly disappear when he wanted, whenever he wanted. And right now, all he wanted to do was wait for Naruto to leave.

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_"Uchiha-san, where are you going?"_

_Sasuke took a second to look back at the secretary he did not recognize._

_"I will be in Dr. Haruno's office."_

_Pressing "5" for Sakura's floor, Sasuke made his way upstairs._

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_Kakashi sat on a naked tree outside and prayed that Sasuke would have more luck than he did. _

* * *

Part two will be up soon. Read & Review.

xx mm.


	2. Argument

**A/N: **This chapter of Dicta Prius takes place after the events of Lux Sit (The sequel to Tempus Fugit).

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter II

**Summary: **Companion to Tempus Fugit. "I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it."**—**SasuSaku.

**Genre: **A little more humorous and some Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku, Kakashi and Sakura, Teacher/Student Bond

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

She showed up to team training.

She.

Showed up.

To.

Team.

Training.

Wearing _that_.

"Sakura-chan! You look great!"

Said girl looked completely comfortable—and ravishing—in a red, knit sweater that made her look impossibly warm, a white scarf that looped around her neck three times and a pair of black pants, along with her regular black boots.

It was a completely acceptable outfit by society's standards.

Not revealing.

Or overly tight.

So why did it make the back if his neck impossibly warm?

Naruto picked Sakura up and swung her around.

Why did that make him want to throttle the dobe?

Well, okay.

Why did that make him want to throttle the dobe _more than usual_?

It was beyond him.

But in the past couple of days, he had been seeing Sakura more and more.

Eating at Ichiraku with Naruto.

Dropping off bento lunches for the before training.

Or even just sitting up in a tree with Kakashi.

However, they never spent time together, so Sasuke never had the opportunity to eat ramen at her side or sit up in trees, doing Kami knows what with her.

When he had sat in her office for hours a few weeks ago, only to leave as soon as he detected her presence down the hall, he had been beating himself up over it.

Whenever he saw her, he got more and more conflicted on whether to follow her around or grab her hair and smell her scent up close.

The pink strands looked delectably wavy today.

"Thanks, Naruto. I brought you guys lunches."

Sakura detached herself from Naruto, who had pulled her from her place at Kakashi's arm—the two had walked over here together again. Doesn't she know how even later she makes him?—and gave him and Kakashi their bentos.

Holy shit.

Now she was walking towards him.

"Here you go, Sasuke."

There she went with that damn smile again. It reminded him of the one she gave to Naruto that day he returned to Konoha.

Only this one was different—beautiful, so beautiful—because the slightly cold breeze had cause a blush across her face.

She waved the bento around teasingly, as if she had some secret that no one knew.

The little minx.

"I put extra tomatoes in yours!"

She was ridiculously cheeky once he took the bento from her.

"Hn. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Sasuke."

And she spun around on her heel, only stopping to give Kakashi a squeeze on the arm and a hug to Naruto.

Then she ran, Naruto screaming to the world about their plans for ramen later and her laughter getting further and further off his radar.

"I love that Sakura-chan's back again! Her bento is the best. And I get to see her again. I missed her so much."

Surprisingly enough, Kakashi shared in his sentiments.

"Yeah. We were a bit empty there, weren't we?"

His smile crinkled with the hidden humor of an inside joke.

"Team Seven. All powerful. But think about how long it took to get this way," Sasuke could've sworn that Kakashi said this part directly to him, "Think about how great it is to have each other."

If he wasn't thinking before, he was thinking now.

* * *

"Love can make one do crazy things, eh Sasuke?"

The Uchiha's head whipped towards the gray haired man standing next to him.

How did he sneak up on him like that?

Maybe he should just rethink this whole "ninja" thing. It didn't seem to be going too well for him anyway

And there he went with his coy smile and eye crinkle.

"I'm not in love."

"I didn't say you were."

The scene was actually quite comical. Anyone walking by would have seen Sasuke ready to burst an aneurysm and Kakashi's calm, happy disposition.

"All I said was that love can make you do crazy things. You're buying flowers, Naruto's paying for his own ramen and I allowed myself to get hit in the jaw."

Kakashi did what?

"We all fall victim to it sometimes."

And with the last word he walked away.

Somehow, Sasuke felt a bit more reassured on his way to the cash register.

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_week **one.**_

_Sasuke sent the red flower that must be, had to be, should be in Sakura's possession a partner. _

_Nothing deserved to be as lonely as he was._

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_week **two.**_

_After leaving Kakashi and Naruto at Ichiraku, Sasuke picks up a flower._

_Three is most certainly not a crowd._

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_week **three.** _

_When Sakura comes to sit under a tree and tell Kakashi ways to bind serious injuries so he never had an excuse to bleed to death, Sasuke lets Naruto cut his side during their spar. _

_Sakura patches him up with bandages and a smile. _

_Sasuke sends her another flower. _

_Four is even better. _

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_week **four.**_

_Naruto rejoices at Sakura's presence in Ichiraku. _

_She takes the stool between him and Sasuke almost hesitantly._

_While she contemplates the best way to put her elbows on the table so she doesn't disturb Sasuke's bubble, the boy in her thoughts gives her the best smile he knows. _

_And sends another flower._

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_._

When Sakura's office door opened to reveal Sasuke on her couch, he could only think one thing.

Too soon.

This is _too soon_.

"So. My ever present stalker decides to reveal himself to me."

Sasuke's insides almost froze.

How had she known—?

"Sasuke, if there's anyone who can detect your chakra in this world, it's me. I still have better chakra control than you do."

"Hn."

"You ran away last time. Why are you here?"

She knew he was here before?

...So that was why she had been so coy with him lately.

_Dammit_, Sakura.

Sakura strode over to her desk and sat down in her leather chair. Anything to hide the trembling of her legs. Pretending to fill out paperwork, she almost laughed at the situation.

How could one person be so in denial, yet so determined to prove something?

Sasuke was the paradox of the century.

Both pairs of eyes in the room strayed to the bouquet of crimson amaryllis flowers on the right side of her desk.

"I know you sent them."

"I didn't send them."

Too quick to reply, Sasuke. Too quick.

"I know you're lying."

"..."

"But amaryllis for radiant beauty? I didn't know you were such a romantic."

Not one to lose his composure, Sasuke replied.

"I thought you loved me."

What the—? Why the hell had he said _that_ of all things?

The damned words were out before he had a chance to stop them.

Sakura's head moved up slowly from her paperwork, eyes dark and stormy.

The pen in her hand snapped, black ink was everywhere, but she paid it no mind.

"You son of a bitch. You can stop right there."

_Well that escalated quickly._

Sakura stood from her sturdy oak desk, body trembling in blind fury. The wood was holding more than just her papers up, but she refused to let that deter her from proving her point.

Her actions were fast, but her words were slow.

He could take back his place as Naruto's best friend.

He could call her weak all he wanted.

Hell, he could stalk her as long as forever came and never admit it.

They could play games like this forever.

But when he questioned her love for him, a line had been crossed.

One written in sand, on a beach, on a windy day...

But a precious line that she had kept away from the tide so that it was never fully washed away.

He had just dragged his feet right over the edge of it, and kicked away a portion she had worked so hard to keep.

She was having none of it.

"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it."

Sakura had no qualms about telling him that she loved him, even though she felt like strangling him.

Even when she felt like he was strangling her.

Tears continued to fall from her eyes, somehow more painful than the fingernails digging into her palms right now.

A reminder of her weakness for him.

"Sasuke, I love you. You know I do. I've said this to you before. You can't use me being unsure of my feelings as an excuse anymore. Because I'm telling you, straight out, that I still love you. That I've always loved you. That i want to grow old with you. No matter if I spend all my downtime with Team Gai or Kakashi or Naruto, because you're you and I'm me and the part of me that thinks we belong together outweighs the part that thinks you're a waste of time. So I will be on this ship until I die. Until it sails..."

"Even if I have to drown on it in order for you to understand the extent to which I love you, I'm not moving. All I ask in return for this eternal waiting is..."

Sasuke continued to look at her, into her very soul.

_Your eyes_.

"That you understand that you love me too."

_They're the only ones I want to see at the end of the day._

"Until you understand, I'm giving you your space. And time. As much of it as you need."

Even when they're narrowed at me like that.

There was a long time where no one spoke. Where Sasuke just looked at Sakura, who had calmed down, circled around her desk, and was now leaning on it, eyes waiting patiently for a response.

She said what she needed to say.

And she knew he wouldn't forget it.

Sakura got a hand wipe from the box on her desk and proceeding to clean her inky hand. And then a tissue to blot her eyes.

To confess the second time around was almost empowering.

She could wait for his response.

After all...

He had come to see her, _right? _

Sasuke could feel himself struggle to maintain his composure.

Sakura had always hit too close to home.

But she was wrong.

_Wrongwrongwrong._

"I don't love you."

Sakura just stared at him.

Her eyes betrayed nothing.

After all, Kakashi had told her all about his conversation with Sasuke.

It took her forever to understand why. But she finally understood now.

"I don't."

She understood the flowers.

Sasuke's heart threatened to throw itself out of his chest as he watched her legs unfold themselves from the position she had them in when Sakura say on her desk.

Creamy and toned and strong and _longlonglong_.

How was Kakashi, _pervert extraordinaire_, always around her?

He gulped and then proceeded.

But she understood.

"I will never love you."

His words had no affect on her face or her approach.

Her heels made her legs even more shapely. They made sounds of his impending doom on the pristine, freshly waxed floor of her office.

If there was ever a time he felt like prey, it was now.

"It's too late for that, Sasuke."

She came to stand in front of him, close enough that their breaths mingled.

When had he started to breathe so hard?

The fingers that traveled from his hands and up to his shoulders were impossibly light, almost like a flutter of butterfly wings, until they laced through each other on the back of his neck, pulling him down.

They stood there for a moment, breathing each other's air.

"Because if I'm drowning, you're going down with me."

Her lips were warm and made to meet his own.

_How good it felt to drown with someone..._

_That wouldn't let you down. _

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_"Sasuke-kun."_

_"...Hn?"_

_"Would you like a strawberry?"_

_Smirk. _

_"Yes, Sakura."_

* * *

This will be continued soon.

xx mm.


	3. Silencio

**A/N: **I had no idea how long winded this was going to turn out to be.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter III

**Summary: **Companion to Tempus Fugit. "I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it."**—**SasuSaku.

**Genre: **More friendship oriented, drama

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

_"Now that you're finally in my reach, I'm scared, Sasuke. I'm so scared that I'll lose you again. So please, don't leave. Stay with me. I need you now more than ever."_

_This can't go on until you're safe, Sakura. _

_"I have to go. I only came to say goodbye."_

_"Sasuke, please."_

_Her voice had never been more pitiful or small. The last time she had begged him to stay was when they were twelve, standing on a road leading out of Konoha. _

_With one final kiss, and a murmured "I'll be back soon", Sasuke took a step back towards the door to Sakura's bedroom. It was still open to guarantee a quick exit._

_Sakura tried to call out for him once more, but her crying stopped his name and held it in a vice grip in her throat. _

_All that came out was a high pitched whine and sobs._

_Sasuke continued to walk, out of Sakura's apartment, down the road, past the market and Ichiraku, towards the gates where Shikamaru, Hinata, and Neji waited. _

_Then he left._

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He was used to being kept in the dark by his teammates. They had been through hell and back together and had overcome so much, but, sometimes, they were disillusioned with the idea that telling him things would cause the world to erupt.

That, or he would get involved.

So, when Sakura showed up at his apartment, pretty eyes leaking with big, hot tears, he almost didn't know what to do.

He had been out of practice from saving people for so long.

Then his Messiah-Complex kicked in.

He held her until she fell asleep at dawn in his arms.

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_"What happened, Sakura-chan?"_

_"He left. And I realized I'm not ever going to be enough to make him stay. No matter what I do."_

_"...Sakura-chan?"_

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_"Just promise you'll never leave me, Naruto."_

_ ._

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_"I promise." _

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First, Sasuke left.

Now, she was sick.

Naruto pondered on his teammate's bad luck as he walked to her apartment. He didn't approve of her solitude during her time of need, but he wouldn't deny her the space she deserved.

The blonde had been visiting Sakura everyday, usually staying with her until she slept.

The pinkette insisted that the vomiting was a normal symptom of excessive stress and her current state of health at the moment, whatever that meant. Naruto tried his best to soothe her troubles, but it was hard. He wasn't alone in the struggle either.

Kakashi had visited Sakura more times than Naruto thought his introverted nature would allow. The two just sat on her bed. Kakashi would read Icha Icha and Sakura would study a book. He would stop her from getting up the whole time he was there and Sakura would actually allow him to dote on her in the weird way that he did. Then, when she started yawning, he would peel back the blankets and tuck her in.

Sometimes he laid with her.

The two had gotten so much closer a few months ago than they had been the entire time the team had ever been together. His gray haired sensei was the one who had brought Sakura back to Team Seven, which surprised him.

He was almost sure that Sasuke would come to terms with their inevitable coupling and drag her back.

Just the thought of Sasuke made him tired. The first two days he had been so angry to even hear his best friend's name.

Now he was just exasperated.

Sasuke just kept making stupid mistakes.

Sakura's love was undying, but at this rate, it would be the death of her.

* * *

Naruto dangled his legs from his perch on one of Sakura's kitchen stools. Watching with fascination at her culinary prowess, his mouth watered.

Sakura's eyes glittered with amusement at Naruto's hunger as she ladled their ramen into bowls

"Ringu is supposed to be on tonight. Wanna watch while we eat our dinner?"

"Eh? I thought you hated scary movies, Sakura-chan?"

At this, Naruto grew concerned. He knew Sakura hated scary movies more than most things.

In fact, if he thought about it, she had been acting strangely lately. She had grown to like ramen a lot more and she got up at obscene hours to go down to the pier.

He even caught her reading Icha Icha last week...

Maybe she was spending too much time with Kakashi. Sasuke had already been gone for 3 weeks, so, without him hogging the pink haired princess, she was probably just picking up her other teammates habits.

Right?

"Just clear whatever stuff I have on the coffee table and put it in my room. I'll sort through it later."

Acquiescing, the future rokudaime shuffled to her living room. Deep plum walls, dark cafe suede couches, tons of pictures, and a fireplace screaming "homey". Naruto loved Sakura's living room. He remembered painting the walls and drinking sake with Sakura while they dried.

The dark wood coffee table was littered with heavy, leather bound books and scrolls that filled his arms.

Naruto carefully balanced the reading material and Sakura placed the steaming bowls of pork ramen on the table.

The blonde had planned on just dumping the books on the top of Sakura's dresser.

That was before a certain book on her bed caught his eye.

He walked over and gingerly picked it up, since the binding looked weak.

Sakura-chan's probably been dragging this book all over the place.

He recognized it as the one she studied whenever Kakashi visited. It looked similar to the one he saw sitting on her lap before he left. Naruto didn't usually stay over when his former sensei came. He got restless with all the reading and just figured she was in good hands.

Many of the pages were dogeared and certain sections were highlighted.

When he saw the word "trimester" an obscene amount, everything clicked.

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_"I can't wait until Naruto Uchiha is born! I wish I could've seen the Teme's face when you told him."_

_"You'll be the first person I call."_

_"...EH!?"_

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Naruto looked up at the rising sun's reflection on the water he was dipping his toes in.

He caught Sakura that early morning rising from bed, and instead of pushing her back down, he followed in suit to the pier.

Looking at Sakura and then to the sky, he prayed for his best friend.

'Sasuke... Come home soon.'

* * *

Next part will be out soon.

xx mm.


	4. Stranger

**A/N: **This is getting ridiculous. I legitimately have no idea what I'm going to do with this story anymore but I'm determined to finish it. I know how annoying abandoned stories are, although I'm not sure if anyone's still waiting for this...

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter IV

**Summary: **Companion to Tempus Fugit. "I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it."**—**SasuSaku.

**Genre: **Drama, drama, and more drama.

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Edited this, sorry to anyone who read my horrible mistakes.**

* * *

He understood that he could overreact to certain situations, but Kakashi had known before him.

_Kakashi. _

The same gray haired pervert who had always put everyone else's training over Sakura's.

He didn't mean to rehash painful memories that the two were trying to work past, but _come on._

In his teammate's defense, she never actually _told_ Kakashi per sé.

"Kakashi came over once to see why I hadn't come to training in days. Shishou told him she had given me a few days off. He used his key to get into my apartment that morning and I was sick. He told me as soon as he started holding my hair while I was vomiting, 'I knew something wasn't right.' And he was dead on, Naruto. Tsunade doesn't want me at the hospital because I turned out pregnant during my last employee evaluation."

It was so much to take in. Naruto laid his head in his hands, the weight of what he just heard turning into a physical burden.

"You never thought to tell me? Or Sasuke? Why doesn't he already know, Sakura?" The suffix was noticeably absent. "You know how much he wants this, needs this. And you held out on him. He would've stayed if you had told him you were—"

"That's the point," she slammed down the kitchen knife she was using to cut the onion that was now crushed in her grip.

She started crying.

For once, they both silently agreed to blame it on the onion.

"I don't want him to put me first just because I'm pregnant. I want him to be there for me, because there's a possibility he might actually love me. Now, I'll never have the chance to see if... if..."

Tan arms turned her around and pushed her head down onto his chest.

He understood and she said no more.

His shirt was stained with the sharp smell on her hands long before he pulled away.

That night she dreamed it was another pair of arms around her.

A hard feat, since he had been gone for so long.

* * *

Sakura was 10 weeks pregnant.

That made it two months since Sasuke's team left on their mission.

It also made them eligible for a rescue mission.

They hadn't sent back correspondence when they left at all. At first, Tsunade dismissed it as an inability to send a messenger bird. They were on an S-Ranked assassination mission so it was a plausible belief.

But _two months_?

Naruto trudged from his teammates apartment beside Kakashi. Sakura had been crying all day. It was her hormones going out of whack or something, Naruto didn't know.

He and Kakashi had tried to cheer her up to something above totally abysmal, but her attitude refused adjustment.

They had even resorted to bring her the village's gossip like a couple of old ladies.

She started to laugh _while_ she cried.

It was getting harder to look at her and lie about updates from Sasuke. She had no idea that his team had never sent correspondence, all at the insistence of her teacher.

"Stress is bad for a woman in her condition," the old lady said.

Naruto hated lying, yet he couldn't help but agree that Sakura didn't need more stress on her.

Naruto looked to the side at Kakashi, who looked even more tired that he was, which meant he probably felt twice as tired as he did.

Naruto felt a little bad for his former sensei. He was really dedicated to Sakura and took it upon himself to do whatever she asked for and didn't ask for.

He briefly thought of the incident this morning where Sakura announced she was going to shower and Kakashi offered to wash her back.

Naruto still wasn't sure whether he was perverted or just worried.

* * *

"I'm sending you two, along with Ino, Lee, and Kiba to figure out what happened to Team 13."

Team 13? Was the irony of their unlucky name and disappearance lost on everyone?

"Kakashi will be leader of this mission. You'll leave at dawn."

The members of Team 14 bowed and left, save for Naruto and Kakashi.

"What are we supposed to tell Sakura?"

Kakashi's question hung in the air.

"I expected that question from Uzumaki. Not you, Kakashi."

Naruto sunk a little lower into the seat in front of Tsunade's desk.

"She'll question our absence."

"Then tell her the truth. Tell her you have to go to save Sasuke. Then watch her cry about being deserted. Again."

The question of whether Sasuke was still alive or not wasn't even brought up for discussion.

.

.

.

.

.

_"So it's an escort mission? And both of you are needed? Seriously?"_

_"Uh, yeah."_

_"Well, be safe, guys."_

_"We'll be back soon." _

.

.

.

.

.

They didn't want to lie.

But it was for her own good.

Team 14 zipped through the trees, Kakashi and Naruto lead up front while Lee followed with Kiba and Ino trailing close behind. They were so close to their destination that it made no sense to Kakashi or Naruto to slow down.

Even Lee was panting from exhaustion though.

They had been at it for three days, only stopping for rest when it got too dark to see where they were going. Kiba didn't even have enough time to scrub the crud out of his eyes before Naruto was done packing his belongings and ready to zip into the trees.

No one had spoken a word since they heard what Team 13's mission was.

It was believed that Kabuto had been killed during the Fourth Shinobi World War. Recent sightings suggested that wasn't the case. He had been spotted around what was left of the Sound Village, while ninja passing through the area had all been deemed MIA during the past 3 months. Sasuke's team was supposed to investigate the area, send back correspondence on the existence of Kabuto, and then execute him if he was actually still alive.

Just the thought of what could've happened to them made Naruto's heart feel like it was going to shatter in a million pieces. Some of his closest friends, and his _best_ _friend_, went on that mission and then seemingly disappeared.

"Oi, Naruto! Hold on!"

When Naruto felt the familiar chakra of his teammate near, he shot off into its essence. Ignoring the calls of Kiba, he broke out of the greenery to stumble onto the dead body of a woman. And the body of a man five feet away, face completely missing, exposing the red flesh underneath. Two other bodies were on the ground, smaller than the rest.

Children.

And they were missing their knee caps, the missing joints obviously swiped off clean by a skilled swordsman.

This family had been massacred.

The smell of blood filled his ears and in the back of his mind, he knew Kiba was probably in agony.

Looking around the clearing he was in, all he could see was red. Blood bathed the grassy floor and his feet made a sickening squelching noise as he maneuvered around the dead bodies.

The body of a man stood a few yards away, completely still, poised to attack.

The red glint of his eyes was unmistakeable.

"Sasuke..."

He was so in shock, he didn't have the time to block the Kusanagi heading his way.

A ways back, Ino screamed in terror.

* * *

Part five will be out soon.

For all of you people who have me on your alerts, drop a review or a PM so I know what kind of a job I'm doing. I write for your enjoyment, so let me know if that's what I'm doing.

xx mm.


	5. Rain

**A/N: **Please enjoy this, even though it's mostly a transition chapter.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter V

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama, drama, and more drama.

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

He recalled Ino one day saying that Sasuke's eyes were "two beautiful pools of onyx, shimmering under the full moon".

He remembered that only because Hinata had agreed and he found himself wishing that someone clawed his best friend's most prized weapons out of his goddamn head.

This couldn't have been what she meant.

He didn't see anything but a dull black after the Uchiha had deactivated his Sharingan.

No shine.

No "shimmer".

As he contemplated this, Sasuke stood a few yards away again, away from a body that shouldn't have been alive.

The sword of Kusanagi had been so close to his gut just a second ago before Kakashi flash stepped in front of him and pushed it back with a kunai.

Naruto didn't have the heart to throw the attacking stranger in the opposite direction at the time.

He was too busy looking at the kneecaps of the dead little girl.

They were there, still bleeding, next to her dirty toes.

Sasuke had killed her and her family.

And then dismembered their bodies.

The tree that Naruto was leaning against was the only thing supporting his weight as he stood behind Ino.

Kakashi had once again taken the lead and stood in front of the group, assessing the blood splattered ex-avenger.

He looked like a wild animal of sorts. His shirt was soaked red and in tatters. His pants were plastered to his skin with old blood. His mouth was crusted with the red liquid at the corners, and his hair used the blood like a gel, hardening to the point where it didn't move in the wind that threatened to carry the metallic smell of blood across the forest.

Naruto's stomach churned at the thought of anyone else he might've killed in the time it took to track him down.

Like the other people of his team.

Were Shikamaru, Neji, and Hinata still alive? Or were they scattered as if they were unassembled human dolls all over the forest floor like these people?

Ino was crouched behind Kiba, who took a defensive stance behind Kakashi.

They were poised to attack, serious and ready.

Naruto wanted to laugh at that observation.

Whoever this person was, he had no mercy...

But when_ Sasuke_ wanted someone dead, then dead they would be.

"Naruto..."

Kakashi called out to him, voice strong and secure, as if the person standing a little ways away from him didn't murder a family and wasn't the person he taught his most prized jutsu to.

"Snap out of it."

With those words, Naruto scrambled forward, Messiah Complex coming back full throttle.

He played his part well, but he was so tired.

Tired of the never ending drama.

Tired of the constant need to save people.

Tired of _Sasuke_.

Yet, only Kakashi could tell his heart wasn't fully in it, and that all he wanted to do was cry.

"Sasuke, what did you do? "

Even Ino, too struck with fear of Sasuke to really listen to their exchange felt the chill that came from Naruto's steady voice. Kiba looked back at the blonde speaking. He wasn't used to him sounding so cold.

"I killed them."

Kiba didn't know too much about Sasuke, but he had heard him speak on a few rare occasions. The monotone that accompanied his sarcastic reply shouldn't have sounded so lifeless. Akamaru, who hadn't moved from his leg the entire time, began to tremble.

"No shit, you bastard! Why? And where have you been? Where's Shikamaru, Neji and Hinata!? And why would you slaughter an innocent family? Don't you remember what it was like to be alone?—"

The air in the forest seemed to drop 20 degrees all at once when Naruto mentioned Sasuke and his state of orphanage. The last person who had mentioned Sasuke's lack of blood relatives had been Madara Uchiha, who used it as a last resort to get the boy to "join his blood in the fight against Konoha". It had worked the first time, before Sasuke had learned of how Madara was just using him like a puppet. When the founder of the Uchiha had tried to use that to turn Sasuke back to his side, he had responded with a Chidori needle to the eye.

"—WHO THE HELL ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BEST FRIEND?"

Naruto, on the other hand, didn't give a _damn_. And Sasuke's lack of recognition towards the words being thrown at him was only aggravating him further.

"I'm a killer, I have no family. I don't know who the people you just named, nor do I care to know them. As for you and I being best friends..."

Naruto knew the blow was coming—

"I would never associate myself with a loud loser like you, _Baka_."

—That didn't make it hurt any _less_.

The fact that Sasuke didn't know who he was and still called him an idiot didn't even register in his mind.

It left him speechless for once.

Thank Kami that Kakashi took over.

"You don't recognize any of us? Do you know who you are?"

"No and no. And even if I did, I have no obligations to the likes of you."

"Hm. That's a shame. Well then I guess we'll just have to take you back by force, ne?"

That was just like Kakashi when it came to battle.

Straight to the point.

And so they fought.

* * *

Kakashi was never one to show panic. He was a composed individual, never wavering and always prepared.

But as he lead the team back through the gates of Konoha, Naruto knew that if the great man beside him were anyone else...

_Well..._

Let's just say he would've been in a corner, balled up in fetal position, breathing into a paper bag.

For Kami's sake, he was _sweating._

And his exposed eyes was staring off into the distance, intent on not looking at the cause of his troubles, who was slung over Naruto's shoulders, as limp as a rag doll.

Fighting Sasuke hadn't been easy, but ever since the Land of Iron, Kakashi had lost his reserves on beating his former favorite's ass when he needed it.

At one point in the battle, where they had both lost their favored weapons and had resorted to taijutsu, Kakashi had almost performed a coup de grâce on Sasuke's head with a near by rock as he lay on his back, panting from a gash on his side that Kakashi had laced with a poison Sakura had made him.

Instead, he ran through the trees and regrouped with Naruto and the others.

He had to remind himself that although this man's body was definitely Sasuke (the apathetic demeanor and skill with Amaterasu was enough to prove that theory), his memories were not those of the boy he had spent so long training, nor the man they had strived so long to retrieve from the darkness. Mornings at the red bridge, dinner at Ichiraku, and the meaning of teamwork held no value to this individual.

That was the only reason why he had spared his life.

Even if it didn't seem that way as he attempted to strangle the black haired boy with Kiba's fallen headband.

Kiba was strapped to Akamaru's back, in critical condition and only kept from death by Ino's medical knowledge. He had six chidori needles implanted in his thigh, as well an 'X' shaped cut draped over the entirety of his back. He almost bled to death by the time Ino got to him.

Ino had escaped the battle relatively okay, except for the limp in her step. They had protected her well; The medic-nin position on Team Seven's squad had taken new meaning once the pink haired, pregnant kunoichi back home had taken that position.

Kakashi had held them back an hour as he regained his strength, stolen by the Mangekyo Sharingan. He had a sprained ankle, a deep gash going down the length of his back, narrowly missing his spine, and swallow cuts sprinkled all over his body.

Naruto's left arm was dislocated out of its socket. It was the only injury that continued to bother him, since the Kyuubi had healed his other major injuries by the time they reached the border of Fire Country.

Sasuke, however, wasn't any better off then any of the other Konoha nin. Kakashi had paralyzed him with a Raikiri, aided by the rain that fell in torrents by the middle of their battle. It lead to an immediate KO, but Sasuke had stopped long enough to be hit because of the stab wound in his side. He had a strange glazed look in his eye and something that resembled realization before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell to the muddy forest floor, face down, beside the dead body of the girl he killed.

If you looked over any of them, they were beaten down, but clean. The rain had washed away the majority of the blood that had coated every single one of their bodies, but it made the battlefield look like a nightmare. The family that had been killed was mostly covered with the soggy, muddy earth by the time they left, but it allowed Naruto to see their wounded bodies without interruptions from the blood that had caked them so thoroughly when they first arrived.

Just thinking about it almost made him want to drop Sasuke at the entrance of Konoha and walk away.

Kakashi looked like he had similar ideas.

"Okay, Ino, make sure Kiba makes it to the hospital now. Naruto and I will bring Sasuke to Tsunade."

"Hai, Kakashi-sensei!"

And Ino and Akamaru were off, leaving Kakashi and his student alone, along with the stranger on Naruto's back.

The gray haired ninja had a far off look in his eyes before he turned to Naruto.

"Let's go."

Kakashi turned to the left, starting on his way to the Hokage Tower. Neither of them talked about the silent decision to take the long way.

They couldn't risk passing Sakura's house.

* * *

Part VI is coming up soon.

xx mm.


	6. Candles

**A/N: **Please enjoy this, even though it's mostly a transition chapter (much like the last one). It's shorter than I think I usually do and I don't necessarily like the way it came out, but I didn't feel right continuing at the place I stopped this at.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter VI

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama, drama, and more drama.

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

Sakura had embraced them with open arms and overzealous tears when they showed up at her house the night following their return.

It only made the turmoil in Naruto's gut grow worse from its nausea-inducing state that developed earlier.

Yamanaka Inoichi had probed the mind of Sasuke himself, and confirmed what the Uchiha's actions already did: He didn't remember anything.

Or anyone.

When Sasuke first returned to Konoha two years ago, before he was placed on house arrest, he had a psychological evaluation conducted by the Yamanaka Clan's leader.

Inoichi had described his mind as a narrow hallway of steely gray filing drawers. It was cold and the floors allowed his footsteps to echo as he moved forward. When he entered this hallway, the overwhelming darkness only temporarily abated when there was an attempt to see what the labels on the nearest drawers were. Topics such as his clan's massacre and the Sharingan were marked as the closest files to the entrance of his mind and read with some difficulty. They were the first glimpses into Sasuke's persona; the first things you saw.

These were the things most people identified Sasuke with after a few moments of encountering him.

However, as Inoichi ventured deeper into Sasuke's mind and memories, he recalled there being a developing lightness in the stifling, suffocatingly dark atmosphere of the hallway. The lighting was ultra dim as files on different types of jutsu and techniques were shown to be catagorized—fire jutsu, kenjutsu, and weaponry tactics were the largest files at this area of the hallway.

Inoichi then moved forward into Sasuke's subconscious, and things grew slightly more sentimental while the lighting grew a few watts brighter and the temperature rose. There were all kinds of things here in this new area of Sasuke's mind. It was filled with new kinds of memories and information, not of people or things...

But of places.

Inoichi recalled the places for them two years ago in the order he saw them: Orochimaru's various lairs, the Uchiha Hideout, the Uchiha District of Konoha, the Valley of the End, and the famous red bridge that everyone in the village knew would be inhabited by a brooding young boy, a hyperactive, knuckle-headed blonde and a pink haired girl with anger management issues until their chronically late, funny haired sensei would show up and whisk them away to some D-Ranked mission.

Inoichi continued to walk and the lighting allowed for him to see the small set of candles sitting on a raised platform at the end of the hallway. Passing drawers filed with memories of "Team Taka", "The Land of Snow", Inoichi took note of the cabinet containing his treasured technique, Chidori, the only ninjutsu this far into the hallway.

Finally making it to the only source of light in Sasuke's mind, Inoichi examined the marble block, white with beige pigments, that held the six candles above the floor.

They were no taller or wider than 3 inches, in silver, circular holders, waxes in an assortment of colors.

Each candle glowed brightly, too brightly for the small size of the fixtures, and Inoichi finally understood why the light in the hallway grew brighter the deeper he traveled.

Three of the candles, lined up in a single row, were in holders that were slightly higher. The wax was a deep crimson and the lifted sides of the candles bore gold plates engraved with the names of Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Mikoto, and Uchiha Itachi.

The three candles on the shorter holders were assorted in colors.

A dark, forest green on the farthest left.

A bright, citrus orange on the farthest right.

A soft, rosy pink in the middle.

The name plates were almost unnecessary.

It was this evaluation alone that saved Sasuke from a prerequisite time in prison.

So when the mind jutsu specialist infiltrated the confines of Sasuke's mind that morning, the report he had dictated in front of Naruto, Kakashi, and Tsunade nearly knocked out the last remnants of hope they had for Sasuke in their systems.

"Sasuke's mind is too dark to see into. He holds no memories, no light. The boy probably doesn't even know he has the Sharingan or his jutsu—his body has become accustomed to the life of a ninja in such a way that his reflexes are enough to sustain his life in battle. It's either that or..."

"Or what, Yamanaka?"

Tsunade's domineering voice cut through the silence of the room. She was never one for trailed off sentences.

In the meantime, Naruto prayed it wasn't what they thought it was.

"Or he's being controlled by someone. An accident could have caused this kind of mental drainage or it could have been purposely induced by someone else. But whoever it is, is beyond my expertise. His mind is so dark that if he is being controlled by someone, I cannot see the evidence of their existence."

.

.

_._

_A god hadn't given him parents when he needed them, love when he lacked it, or even a response when he begged for one. _

_Why would one come to his aid now?_

.

.

.

He didn't know why Sasuke always made him so cynical.

Naruto knows he's still a little bitter about almost being killed by his best friend, but why did the one man who fueled his desire to be the best cause him to grow so sour?

He loved Sasuke.

Really, he did.

They were brothers, for _fuck's sake._

But ever since their mission to bring him back, thinking about Sasuke put him in a sour mood.

It was getting harder to look atSakura and lie about it too.

To gaze into Sakura's relieved eyes while knowing Sasuke was in the private recovery room of the Hokage Tower was physically painful.

The emerald orbs cut through him like a knife.

His mind mused on the similarity between the sound of someone being stabbed in the gut and the _squelch_ing of walking in mud.

Naruto then thought of the day they found Sasuke and sadness mixed with anger brushed upon his mood like the fleeting caress of a feline's tale.

He was sure Kakashi felt it too.

"Are you both okay?"

Sakura was great at detecting the vibe of a room. It was why she made such a good diplomat for Tsunade.

Thinking about her trips to far off lands to act as a representative for Tsunade and his failure to snag the job of being her bodyguard only made Naruto feel worse.

Now, she was 11 weeks _pregnant _with the baby of a guy who she loved with every fiber of her being.

The guy now had no idea who she was.

The fact made him want to ask the ground to swallow him up.

Naruto shifted in his seat and dropped his head to inhale the steam coming from the bowl of beef ramen Sakura had prepared for dinner.

"We're fine, Sakura. Don't worry about us. It's not good for you right now, hm?"

Naruto lifted cerulean eyes hidden by shaggy yellow bangs just in time to see his former sensei's right eye crinkle and his other teammate turn her blushing face to the side.

Sakura often did that whenever Kakashi spoke out of concern for her.

She still wasn't used to the attention Kakashi showered on her as of recent.

Kakashi felt he had a lot to make up for.

That was all.

So why did Naruto feel like something was off?

"Yeah, Sakura-chan. We're fine. And we're happy to be here with you."

The smile he received in return gave him the impulse to smile, so he did. Even when he noticed Sakura smile at Kakashi, and even after she turned back to her food, see the Copy-Nin's Eye linger on her.

Whatever was going on between the two of them, would come to the surface eventually.

For now, he would just grin and bear it.

* * *

Part VII will be out soon.

Also, a big thank you to my reviewer, **harusaki-tsukiko**: Her ranting review sounded just like me when I was writing the rest of the plot out for this story and reading it from someone else had me almost dying of laughter.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and let me know what you think!

xx mm.


	7. Waiting

**A/N: **Okay, I know that I seriously just updated yesterday, but this chapter needs to be put out of the way for me to really get into what the plot is. So enjoy (hopefully)

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter VII

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama, drama, and more drama.

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

"Sakura-chan?"

"Yes, Naruto?"

They were leaning against a tree in training ground three, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh.

The last time they had sat this close was on her couch, the day before he had left to retrieve Sasuke and his team.

His eyes drifted to the right.

She looked so pretty, sitting in the shade, the slight breeze going through her hair that had gotten so much longer since she got pregnant.

The longest of the lush pink strands brushed the bottoms of breasts while the ones framing her face came to her petite-set shoulders.

Sakura had a certain glow about her as of late. She credited it to the pregnancy.

Naruto knew it was because Tsunade told her Team Thirteen's mission was running smoothly, according to the correspondence they were sending to Konoha.

Lies._ Bullshit_ lies.

He had told Tsunade so.

"Naruto, I don't give a damn if you don't approve of my methods of keeping her happy. The most important thing is that she's happy. That's it."

When he tried to argue, she picked up his body like a rag doll and flung him out of her window.

Through the glass.

He told Sakura while she healed him that "Baa-chan got annoyed with him for breaking some of her sake bottles".

He could be rather clumsy, so Sakura just shook her head and plucked the remaining shards of glass from his body.

Looking back to her, she met his eyes with a raised eyebrow and a small quirk of the lips.

His eyes drifted all over her face, then straight down to her stomach and then back to her eyes.

She was wearing a red cotton dress with thin straps, allowing the sun to kiss her shoulders as they left her apartment to go to the training grounds at noon. It stopped above her legs and matched the red ribbon adorning the rim of her circular hat. The white flats she had slipped on her feet lay a few feet away from them.

Sakura loved the feel of grass between her toes.

Naruto, with his black t-shirt, orange shorts and flamboyantly orange hair, made the two of them look like the perfect artist palette for a painting of sunset.

Well almost.

They were nothing without the deep hues of blue and purple that should have been accompanying them.

"What is it, Naruto?"

She nudged him in the side, curious of what he was going to ask her.

There was so much he wanted to know.

About Sasuke, about Kakashi, about her pregnancy, about how she was feeling, if she would hate him once she found out the truth...

But he didn't dare inquire about any of that.

"You know I love you, right?"

Her laugh was musical. It was soothing, like heavy wind chimes in a spring breeze.

"Yes, Naruto. Did you know I love you?"

For a second, his heart soared. It had been a while since he renounced his crush on Sakura. But she was still the most important woman in his life. She was his first love. He fought to the brink of the death to save her numerous times and she had done the same once she gained her bearings. He couldn't exactly recall when he finally won her approval. It could've been when he defeated Pein or even before that. But he had and now here they were. She was pregnant with a face painted by angels themselves as they sat under this tree, hand in hand.

He just loved her _so_ _much. _

Even when she married and he did the same, he would look at her and see perfection.

Even knowing all her flaws.

Like one he was seeing right now.

Hardened shinobi she was, Sakura was still too trusting.

His response was a squeeze of the hand.

The moment was something to be cherished and he wouldn't ruin it with words.

She wouldn't even want to look at him soon enough.

* * *

Spending time with his former sensei made Naruto lighthearted, even though the blows he got to the head during their spar usually left him lightheaded.

If he told that to anyone but himself, they would say the ramen broth was finally making its way to his brain.

The Copy-Nin was a haunted man. From his father, to the acquiring of his Sharingan eye, the murder of his female teammate, the death of his teacher, the loss of his protégée...

Hatake Kakashi knew about loss.

And the single eye that looked upon the world told of that loss, if one bothered to look long enough.

But Kakashi reminded him of a time where everything was okay because it seemed the man always knew what to say and do.

He was one of the wisest people in Naruto's life.

That also meant there was a small part of Naruto that didn't want to question him or his methods.

"Something on your mind, Naruto?"

It was simple, really.

Kakashi, even with all his ramen-paying, eye-crinkling, and porn-reading, intimidated him like a sensei should intimidate his student.

"Yeah...uh..."

"Hm?"

At his stuttering, Kakashi looked away from the words housed in a familiar neon orange to raise an amused eyebrow at his student.

"Do you love Sakura-chan?"

Plus, he lacked any tact. This made him susceptible to putting his goddamn foot in his mouth.

But he was tired of guessing. Did something happen between them? Was he being left out of the team again?

Kakashi's eye scanned the empty training field, only to close as he tossed his head back and laughed.

Louder than Naruto ever heard him before.

"Yes, Naruto. I do."

Blunt as ever.

Kakashi looked around them again.

The word 'paranoia' entered the blonde's subconscious.

"But I also love you. And even our dear Sasuke-chan..."

In the deepest part of his being, he felt it wasn't the answer he was looking for.

And he knew that Kakashi was aware of that.

"How about we go pick up some lunch?"

For once, he wasn't so hungry.

But he complied anyway—

"You're paying for Sakura."

—Because he was given the role of the ramen obsessed, comical, dense-as-cement teammate.

And if he had the play this part, he would make it sincere.

* * *

Looking at the empty eyes of his teammate brought no reaction out of Naruto.

Did he mention he was tired?

It was customary to be asleep at this time of night.

Naruto and Kakashi had been doing just that in Sakura's living room before a messenger bird lightly tapped its beak against the curtain covered window.

The lights weren't even on in the office of Konoha's current Hokage. The full moon's light invaded the space, sufficiently enough that Naruto could see the confusion Sasuke was trying to mask on his face.

Even with no idea of who he was, he didn't want to be open about his feelings.

Naruto's eyebrows furrowed and he turned his gaze away to Tsunade, who was eyeing the three with sleep deprived, weary eyes.

For the duration of his stay in Tsunade's private recovery room, Sasuke had been under surveillance of ANBU he didn't know.

He got a visit from Inoichi every other day, who tried his hardest to probe Sasuke's mind, but with no such luck.

Naruto never visited for reasons he kept telling himself were perfectly rational.

In reality, he had no idea what they were.

He didn't know if Kakashi visited Sasuke at all, but that seemed unlikely, as the two of them dedicated a large chuck of their time to their only missing teammate.

Now, Sasuke sat in front of Tsunade's desk with Naruto and Kakashi on either side of him.

It was the first time they were all gathered in the same vicinity since they dragged him back to a village he had no memory of.

The room was soundproofed as always, but Tsunade seemed to speak in a voice one notch lower the usual.

It highlighted the seriousness of the matter they would discuss.

"I've been considering taking the first steps to assimilating Uchiha Sasuke back into the general public."

With that sentence, his worst fears had been realized and tanned palms began to sweat.

"I know what the main object of concern is here," Her circumlocution of her apprentice's name seemed to go completely over Sasuke's head, "and I believe it is now time to make the present situation known in a manner that will allow for the smoothest transition we can afford."

Translation: It's to come clean.

The first step was to move Sasuke back into his family's home.

* * *

Every morning, Sakura would get up before sunrise and walk slowly towards the intersection of Konoha's general village and the Uchiha District.

Then, she would walk down a dirt path that was familiar enough to her because of Sasuke.

When her sandaled feet reached the edge of the pier, she sat down and let the tips of her toes dangle in the water.

Prayers for the man who had too much of her would escape her lips first.

When her teammates didn't come down to the lake with her, she prayed Naruto stayed smiling forever and that Kakashi remembered he was never alone.

She prayed that her dearly departed parents were free from the worries of the world.

That her shishou had a good night's sleep.

That Ino got over that silly spat with her mother about the flower arrangements.

Sakura prayed and prayed for every person she could think of.

Then she would look down at the stomach that would soon expand, and she would tell the growing life inside her all about the people she had just talked to Kami for.

She would tell the baby about its father, and how ecstatic he would be once he was told of its existence. She would apologize for calling the baby "it", since she didn't know its gender.

She then exhaled, shook her feet free from any excess water, slipped into her sandals, and went back the way she came.

By the time she got to the beginning of the dirt path Sasuke had showed her, a place where you could look both ways and see two different worlds in the same village, the sky was lit with the fire of the sun and market vendors were setting up for a new day of profit.

She always looked at the Uchiha Estate's gates and frowned at the chain that added to the security of a lock it already had.

So when Sakura walked from the dock, looked at those gates adorned with petals from the garden she helped Sasuke set up, and saw the absence of a chain...

She ran.

* * *

Part eight will be out soon.

The confrontation is almost here.

xx mm.


	8. Even Break

**A/N: **Okay, I seriously hope this isn't anticlimactic.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter VIII

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama, drama, and more drama.

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

Sakura was on the floor, hidden by the elongated bangs that were falling into her eyes more often nowadays.

He couldn't see her face but the heartbreaking picture of his favorite girl crying was so far embedded in Naruto's mind's eye that he didn't really have to.

Her shock hadn't let her tuck and roll properly, as a respected shinobi should during a mid-air fall.

She was cradling her right hand, which had no doubt been sprained in its attempt to protect her womb before she hit the ground.

Kakashi moved to her hunched form on the floor of Sasuke's living room, picked her off the floor and began to inspect her hand.

"Your ulna bone is out of place."

Sakura's ramblings about civilian patients in the hospital had paid off for both him and Kakashi.

They had picked up tons of miscellaneous information about the human body.

"I can heal it."

She had startled them with the sound of her sandals going _clackclackclack! _on the pathway past the gate. Sasuke moved to the front door to confront whoever had come onto property he'd been told was solely his. Naruto could feel the fluttering in gut that occured whenever Sakura's steady glow of chakra got close. Then she slammed the front door to his home open, spotted Sasuke, and jumped to fall into his arms.

Too bad he didn't comply.

"You shouldn't be using chakra. You're—"

"Who is she?"

Hands pocketed.

Face clear of emotion.

Save for the raised eyebrow, Sasuke was the perfect picture of indifference.

Looking into his eyes, Sakura couldn't see a thing.

They were too cloudy and from her perspective, he resembled an angered puppet; confused, but lacking the mental capacity to process anything.

Sasuke's eyes, regardless of what others thought, were more expressive than hers. In desperate situations, they took on a dangerous vermillion and black swirl. When he was annoyed, they fixated on a single spot in the distance and didn't move. When he was confused and demanding answers, they were narrowed. When he was confused, but unconcerned, he raised an eyebrow.

His expression told her he didn't know who she was...

But he also didn't care.

"She's Sakura-chan, you're—"

"Teammate. I'm your teammate."

Naruto tried to share a look with Kakashi, who was still cradling Sakura's hand, watching the interaction between the two.

What the hell?

Why didn't he seem surprised about this?

A feeling that had become a sort of companion in the past couple of months settled into Naruto's stomach.

Isolation.

Sakura slipped away from Kakashi's grasp and raised her head to lock eyes of the person who was so much more than just her teammate.

The reddened nose and sticky looking eyelashes gave more away that she probably liked.

"I'm sorry I threw myself at you like that, Sasuke-kun. I guess I just got a bit overzealous. I know you don't remember me, but I've missed you, that's all."

Tearful eyes crinkled as she let out a forced laugh.

"I'm gonna go home now. It's late, or early I guess, with the sun out and all..."

Sasuke's silence caused her words to trail off.

"I'll just let myself out then."

Sakura's sandals made clackclackclack sounds on the hardwood flooring of Sasuke's house as she walked to the front door.

"I..."

There was so much that she could've said, should've said.

There was so much that Naruto prayed to every god that she would _say. _

_"I love you."_

Or maybe even_, "I'm the future mother of your child."  
_  
"I'm so glad you're back, Sasuke-kun."

But his faith in those holy beings was barely there as of late, so she didn't say any of it.

"Naruto, Kakashi... I'll see you later."

The door slid quietly as Sakura slipped on her sandals, ready to leave the tension filled air of the Uchiha home.

"Sakura-chan."

Everyone's heads whipped towards Naruto.

His fists were clenched impossibly tight. He was probably trying to keep himself from breaking anything.

She couldn't deal with Naruto's demands or inquiries or speeches about friendship and love and peace or whatever the hell he converted their enemies with. She couldn't even—

Her legs gave out from under her.

—_Breathe_.

The arms she wanted to catch her, did.

* * *

"How did we let it get this far?"

"How could we have told her, Naruto?"

After that, he was silent.

The slow beeping was the only reassurance that Sakura was breathing. Even when they were genin, he couldn't tell if she was still alive as they all laid to rest until she woke up the next morning. He couldn't even see her chest moving.

Looking at Sakura now, she appeared too stiff to be sleeping.

Like she couldn't even escape her troubles in rest.

Naruto's eyes drifted to Sasuke, whose eyebrows were furrowed as he looked at Sakura's form unabashedly.

The hatred he held for this new-and-clueless Sasuke was insurmountable.

He knew it wasn't fair to hold ill will towards someone who knew nothing of where he was or the people around him, but, frankly, he just didn't give a damn anymore.

His stomach growled with something that sounded like much more than hunger. Red, hot chakra bubbled inside of him.

"This is all your fault."

Kakashi noticeably tensed.

Sasuke didn't even deign Naruto's response with the slightest of glances.

It was almost like a silent "_Fuck you._"

Kakashi blinked.

It was all he had time to do before chaos erupted.

The next thing Kakashi knew Naruto and Sasuke's chairs were toppled over and Naruto had his hands wrapped around the throat of the Uchiha.

He was squeezing so tightly and every time Sasuke gasped for air, Naruto's hold only grew steelier.

Kakashi knew he should move. He couldn't damn well just let Sasuke die, right?

Then why wasn't he moving?

The animalistic growl to the blonde's words helped him understand—

"You just had to go and get yourself into more trouble, leave her here, alone and scared! You don't give a damn about anyone but yourself! I wish you had died out there, you fucking son of a bitch!"

—He didn't know what to do.

First, Sasuke had gone.

And now Naruto?

Maybe it would be best if he—

_NoNoNO! MOVE YOURSELF! DO SOMETHING! _

Kakashi's limbs brain and limbs were at a stalemate.

So, he didn't move.

"Naruto! That's enough!"

Naruto was an orange streak across the floor as he skidded back to hit the wall by the door.

Sasuke's face was fading from purple to his naturally pallor appearance as Tsunade worked to out pour chakra into his shriveled lungs and bruised windpipe.

He could only watch as Naruto's head drooped as he looked at the hands that had been strangling the life out of the man who was supposed to be his best friend. On shaky feet, he stood up, wrenched the door open, and ran from the room.

"What is wrong with that boy?"

Kakashi couldn't answer her question. He looked over and saw Sakura's eyelid twitch before she went back to looking dead.

She had been awake through the whole thing.

/

Tsunade had Sasuke shipped to another room three hours ago.

The force at which Naruto had slammed him onto the floor caused some major bruising on his back and spine, as well as a dislocated shoulder.

Kakashi had yet to work up the nerve to think about visiting Sasuke, let alone ask Tsunade about his condition.

Sakura had yet to do the same.

Tsunade stood beside the scenic view the hospital's window provided, completely disregarding it. Her eyes were on Sakura's chart, scrutinizing it carefully, most likely getting a loud lecture ready on her red lips.

One look at Sakura though, her frown almost looked sympathetic.

"You're staying here."

Her student's head stayed in its lowered position, never looking up from the bandaged wrist on her lap.

"You haven't been taking care of yourself. You're too stressed."

Kakashi wanted to say that stress wasn't Sakura's problem at the moment.

With her hunched shoulders and hair covered face, she was a picture of defeat.

"Sakura, look at me."

Only her shishou's firm voice made her raise her head; slowly and steadily, as if it would roll off her neck if she moved too quickly.

"Rest."

"Will Sasuke-kun be okay?"

An exasperated sigh told of how much Tsunade was trying to tolerate Sakura's brooding air.

"His injuries are moderate and he's always been a fast healer."

"...That isn't what I meant."

"I know."

Sakura's head turned to face the window instead of the Hokage.

After the almost imperceptible nod that followed, Tsunade threw one last worried glance at her pupil before she turned to the only man in the room.

"Kakashi, drop by my office later. I have some new information on Team 13's mission."

And with that, she left.

Nothing and no place was ever really silent, Kakashi noted. Especially the hospital.

There were always people walking outside, nurses gossiping, machines beeping.

Then there was your own heartbeat, your breathing, the sound of blood pumping in your ears letting you know your alive.

Then why did all the noises fade into the nothing when he looked at Sakura, who had turned her eyes straight ahead, and whose gaze was burning holes into his head?

With a glance at her sickly gray countenance and slightly parted lips, he knew he should have offered her something.

A compliment.

A glass of water.

Maybe, an explanation?

But he did nothing... for the second time that day.

"Ryo for your thoughts."

Her voice was horse and sounded like the words she spoke would scratch her throat.

She _really_ sounded like she needed water.

"When any normal person sees their teammate in bed, naturally their only thought is for that comrade to recover."

"Don't _fucking_ patronize me. You are the farthest thing from 'any normal person', Hatake Kakashi."

He dreaded the direction of this conversation.

"A normal person wouldn't just watch as someone was strangling another."

"Sakura—"

"Naruto could've killed Sasuke. And you sat there and did nothing."

He didn't really have a defense for that.

"Never mind that though, right? You obviously would've stepped in once they pulled out the chidoris and rasengans," He almost winced at the reference to the many times that'd happened—like the day on the roof of the very hospital they were in, "Instead of that, lets talk about how after all this time, I'm still the weakest link. Oh poor me, I can never keep up, can I?"

"That's not true."

He denial didn't even sound convincing to his own ears.

"Really? How long have you known that Sasuke has no memory of anything or anyone?"

"How did you know that?"

"My brain was the only reason I was put on this pathetic excuse of a team. And I love him. The moment I looked into his eyes, I knew he had no idea about who I was and why I was trying to latch on to him like some kind of parasite."

"...The escort mission we went on was to retrieve Sasuke."

"Of course it was."

For a while, neither of them said anything. Sakura closed her eyes in an attempt to wrestle the last shred of sanity she had back into her mind and Kakashi was too busy looking for the right thing to say.

"We were only trying to protect you."

"Bullshit. You just thought I'd crack under the pressure."

"I have never denied your strength, Sakura."

"You've always denied my strength. Apart of me still thinks, no—_knows_, that you still think of me as the terrible excuse of a ninja I was back when I craved the days that you would ruffle my hair and tell me good job."

"I know exactly who you are, Sakura. I thought we were past rehashing this. I thought we got past the point where you would throw the past in my face. I thought you trusted me.

"I thought you looked at me as if I wasn't made of glass, Kakashi!"

"Sakura, stop! I don't think of you as a genin. I know exactly who you are! You even... we...I... Sakura, please."

"We even had sex, Kakashi. I gave you my virginity, Kakashi. You were my first, Kakashi! JUST SAY IT! ARE YOU ASHAMED?"

"I HAVE NEVER BEEN ASHAMED OF YOU!"

At this point they were both screaming out the top of their lungs, an unfamiliar feeling to Kakashi. Never did anyone make him move out of his comfort zone as much as Sakura.

"I AM NO LITTLE GIRL AND YOU ARE PROOF OF THAT! You can look at me, grown enough to do all that with me... But I'm still too young to hear the truth about anything?"

"I never meant to hurt you, Sakura."

The words came out barely over a pained whisper.

It felt as if she was performing a vivisection on his body, only to probe at his beating heart. He really never meant to hurt her...

"I always knew I was never as important to you as everyone else on our _oh-so-amazing team_," Sakura spit out the last four words with such venom he almost stepped back, "But you know what? I thought things had actually changed between us. That you making sure I was happy, okay, even comfortable meant something to you!"

"Things have changed, Sakura... I... I didn't know how to tell you..."

"I'M CARRYING SASUKE'S CHILD AND YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE DECENCY TO GET OVER BEING A FUCKING COWARD TO TELL ME HE HAD NO IDEA WHO I AM!"

"Let me explain!"

"NO! I knew Naruto was capable of this, because he cares too much and does stupid stuff like this all the time!"

At this point, Kakashi was choking on his own words.

"But you... You know me in a way that no one else does, Kakashi. I trusted you with everything I was. I gave you myself and you never rejected me. I guess I was a fool to think that meant you thought of me as someone who could handle whatever you could as well."

She might as well have just slapped him in the face.

"The whole reason we kept this from you was to keep you from getting hurt. Not because you're weak, but because we care about you."

"Well I love Sasuke. So much, that it hurt me enough to think he was somewhere far away, doing dangerous things. I hoped so much that he thought of me while he was gone..."

She didn't bother stating the obvious.

That he didn't think of her.

That he didn't even know who she was.

"You letting me find this out for myself is probably worse than abandoning me when I was younger."

Kakashi didn't need to be reminded of his faults. He was well aware of them. But with Sakura he was always extra mindful of his failures. Always trying to make up for all the things he didn't do, and the one thing he did.

"You've really outdone yourself now, Kakashi."

So when she turned on her side, ready to force herself asleep, he didn't hesitate to leave.

But not before saying words that he knew he would grow to regret later on. Not because of his words—

"You say you knew Sasuke didn't remember you because you _love_ him. By that logic, you should know I mean what I say when I tell you that I only wanted to make sure you were happy."

"You're forgetting one thing."

"And that is?"

"I have _never_ loved you."

—But because of _hers_.

Disgust oozed from her tongue before she settled back on her side.

He could've told Sasuke he was aware of his presence before Sakura had even opened her mouth as he shut the door to her hospital room and continued on his way to an undecided destination.

But he didn't bother.

Kakashi was tired of Team Seven.

He was tired of Sakura.

He was tired of it _all_.

And now he could finally admit it to himself.

Laying down to rest that night, his hand swiped the top of his night stand.

A frame broke in two.

* * *

The next part will include S+S interaction.

Tell me what you thought of this, r&r!

xx mm.


	9. Hospital Beds

**A/N: **I hope you guys enjoy this. PleasePleasePlease! A great happy belated birthday present (turned 16! on Sunday) would be for you guys to enjoy this chapter.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter IX

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama, drama, and more drama.

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Note:** OOC!Sasuke.

* * *

When the door closed with a finalizing _snap!_, Sakura buried her face into the crisp pillow behind her, screaming to her heart's content.

Logically speaking, she knew what she said must've hurt him.

But she wasn't calm enough to care.

Not yet.

And now, a few hours later, she laid her head on the same pillow she screamed into, mind running far too rampant to shut down for a few hours desperately needed sleep.

Tsunade had come in a few hours before, turning off the light and telling her to rest; her vitals said her balance was off and that she had trouble keeping her eyes focused on one spot for too long.

Any medic, even those in training, could tell she was sleep deprived.

Her legs were tangled in the white sheets and she couldn't decide whether she was hot or cold.

She knew it was impossible, but she could almost feel the blood running through her veins start to bubble up something furious at the sleep that just wouldn't come.

The clock said 3:13 AM, but if she had learned anything from working at the hospital, it was that time didn't exist here. She longed for the days where she was elbow deep in someone's blood, with such a strong self loathing that she didn't even bother to change out of her clothes before falling onto her bed and drifting away from chakra exhaustion.

Those were the worst nights of her career and they had been so frequent before Team Seven had reassembled.

(More like they finally wanted her in the "Naruto, Sasuke & Kakashi Show".)

The venomous thought drifted into her mind before she had time to stop it.

Her hands wandered down to her abdomen, which had yet to implode, rubbing absentmindedly, a habit that had stuck with her as of late.

In her condition, no one was letting her do anything and the lack of independence was starting to get to her.

Sakura snorted to herself.

For a second there, she made her pregnancy sound like a sickness.

Sickness.

Morning sickness.

Vomiting.

Hunched over a toilet with someone holding her hair back.

_Kakashi._

The pillow under head sailed with barely repressed rage to the other side of the room, hitting the wall before planting itself on the floor with a dull_ thump_.

Just thinking about the gray haired jounin was aggravating to her senses.

And people thought S_asuke_ was complicated?

They obviously didn't pay enough attention to Kakashi.

He was the epitome of the word 'complicated'.

And to think so much more would've happened between them if he hadn't of turned around and deemed everything that happened between them that night that night to be a mistake. There was a grand chance that she would've been carrying his child if he hadn't of turned her away and acted as if she meant nothing more to him than just another student.

Pft, _student._

As if the man had ever taught her anything.

Shadows played behind the frosty glass of her door as nurses and doctors made their ways to different rooms, just like she would've been. One figure stood out from the rest once the sound of footsteps closed in on her door. Before she could put on a convincing fake asleep look, the intruder called her out.

"Don't bother acting like you're sleeping."

The deep, albeit slightly hoarse voice belonged to Sasuke.

"I can hear you from the other side of the wall."

He spoke as he moved to lean against her window sill, footsteps quiet and slow on the shiny tiles of the hospital room floor.

A full moon cast an unearthly glow on Sasuke's face, making him look like some fallen angel.

It reminded her of their first festival together as a couple.

/

_Months ago..._

Standing in front of the mirror in Sasuke's hallway, she could see the amused eyebrow tilt he made at her observation.

"Yes, Sakura. Kami banished me from heaven after he found out how we—"

"Sasuke-kun!"

She squealed at him, knowing the words he didn't say were probably ten times as worse as the endings running through her mind.

No one would ever peg_ Sasuke_ of all people to be such a closer pervert.

When he began to nip at her neck, she hardly protested, only barely showing any kind of resistance. He didn't move away, far too used to her strength to know by the half hearted slap on his arm that she didn't actually want him to stop.

They had been dating for a few months and in that time, they had become greatly acquainted with each other's quirks, like how Sasuke never locked the front door to his house and how Sakura couldn't pass by the Yamanaka's Flower Shop without stopping to smell the new arrivals.

And how if she wanted him to cut something out, she'd make sure he felt it.

The _next_ morning.

Before he could continue to discreetly slide the crimson kimono off her shoulders and untie her light pink obi for the umpteenth time that night, she pulled away.

"Sasuke-kun! We're gonna be late!"

"And knowing our friends, they'll be later."

"You don't know that."

"We invited Kakashi."

"He'll be chasing after Shizune-sempai all night, not eating yakatori with us."

Sasuke scoffed and turned Sakura away from the mirror to face him. Readjusting the emerald hair ornaments she wore (that he paid for), his eyes started to roam around his girlfriend's face.

When he planted a kiss on her nose, her face scrunched up with a feigned annoyance that made him chuckle.

After spending months around Sakura (her actually being aware of his presence), he couldn't deny his demeanor was affected by her bubbly personality.

She was a ray of light and he was a cluster of clouds.

Together, they made something worth painting.

"Are you alright, Sasuke-kun?"

His absentminded stare had caused her worry.

Soft hands came up to touch his face, playing with the strands that covered his forehead with the absence of his Konoha hitai-ate.

"Come on, Sasuke-kun!"

She pushed him through door to his home and pulled him by both hands out of the Uchiha District's entrance gates.

"Lead shoes much?"

.

.

.

Sakura knew she was a myriad of colors on a regular day.

Under the festival lights, she always thought she looked like so much more.

Red lanterns turned her blush locks into a pinkish reddish mixture. Sasuke always took notice, but he could never quite pin names on the different hues her hair took under different lighting.

He was never good with colors.

He was a _shinobi_ for crying out loud.

Nevertheless, he wouldn't ever tell her aloud he noticed, so what was the point?

Sasuke grabbed her wrist, pulling her to his chest.

"Last chance..."

"A kiss before our impending doom?"

He was more of a man of _action_, anyway.

Bending down to "plant a good one on her", as Naruto said, they were interrupted.

"THERE YOU GUYS ARE!"

As the rest of Konoha's 12 walked towards them, Naruto's yelling brought out a joined visible sigh from the couple.

"WHAT!? TOO BUSY MAKIN' OUT TO GET TO PLACES ON—OW! SAKURA-CHAN!"

"Shut the hell up, dobe. And you look like a fucking orange in your yukata. Trying to blind me?"

"DAMMIT TEME! AT LEAST I DON'T LOOK LIKE A DEMON!"

"Can't you guys be civil today? We're at a festival!"

"Why aren't you three getting along nicely."

The teenagers turned to stare at Kakashi, he looked down right handsome in his mask and forest green yukata.

Somewhere midst the rest of the Konoha's finest, the kunoichis' eyes turned to bulging hearts.

"Kakashi! You look so nice! Trying to attract a certain lady?"

Sakura's eyebrows wiggled up and down suggestively.

Sasuke's left eyebrow twitched.

Naruto just looked confused.

"Sakura, I attract all kinds of women. I don't need to dress up to do that."

"YOU CONCEITED LITTLE—"

Naruto and Sasuke caught Sakura in midair, who had planned to assault the older man.

"Now, now Sakura. You should relax. We wouldn't want your pretty outfit to get all wrinkled, hm?"

Kakashi's eye crinkled in mischief.

"I'LL WRINKLE YOUR FACE, YOU OLD PERVERT!"

Those not in Team Seven huffed visible sighs.

_This_ was the almighty Team Seven?

They were the weirdest bunch of misfits you ever saw.

.

.

.

"Having fun, Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn."

She knew that meant 'yes'.

Sakura's array of facial expressions amused Sasuke to the point where he could almost forget about his blonde teammate's excessive chatter and the crowds upon crowds of people they had to maneuver through on the street.

Her tongue would stick out as she focused on catching goldfish with a flimsy net. Her eyes took on a gluttonous glint as she got a steamy helping of teriyaki. Her mouth formed an "o" in amazement of the "pretty lights".

And then she started to drag him over to a kind looking old man with a camera, grinning like Kakashi when he found out Naruto was the one who hid his Icha Icha.

They didn't see the blonde idiot for two days after that happened.

"Why hello, pretty lady! Would you and that boyfriend of yours like a picture together?"

"Come on, Sasuke-kun! It'll be our souvenir from our first festival as a couple!"

Her smile widened tenfold when he wordlessly put his left hand around her waist and had a content expression on his face.

The festival lights played with the shades in her hair and brought a new glow to her skin.

His mouth stretched a little wider.

"What a beautiful couple!"

/

They really were a beautiful couple. The contrast in appearance and personality actually allowed her to delude herself into thinking that they were soulmates.

Two of a kind.

That the only obstacle they had left in their future was to finally**atlast**_porfin _get together.

She was wrong.

She was also a fool.

Her bandaged hand laid on her stomach and she winced when she thought of the child she was bringing into the world.

She had always wanted nothing more than to finally be content with a family that loved her, a husband who couldn't live without her.

Sasuke was not her husband.

And he was living without her.

Without her or him or them together in his memories.

Sasuke was living without anything.

And even if she didn't know how this occurred, something told her it wasn't just an unexpected twist.

Things just didn't feel right.

But she didn't have the energy to fight what she knew was not just a terrible coincidence.

"You okay?"

Sasuke had never been excessively vocal with her. He spoke more with her than with others, of course. He would spoil her with sarcasm that lacked any malice and humor her stories about work with questions that were simple enough and sometimes even encourage their witty banter.

But when it came to asking about how she felt, he was more of an action person.

He would put his arm around her when they sat on her couch, kiss the top of her head if she slouched too low or stroke her hair until she fell asleep.

Sasuke wasn't perfect, but he always tried.

_So hard._

She found herself not regretting telling him she was pregnant.

At least then he would know who she was...

_(All that they were._

_Still are?_

_Could be.)_

This person that looked so much like Sasuke and held so many of his mannerisms was really nothing like him.

"The Sasuke I know doesn't talk so much."

The words were forced out of her mouth for the sake of not totally ignoring this strange and familiar man.

"You're crying."

"...Huh?"

Fingertips reached up to her face and, sure enough, the drops of water were leaving tracks on her face with minuscule measurements of salt.

"I'm fine."

"Do you always lie?"

Sasuke had a smug look on his face from the surprise that was surely plastered all over her expression.

"Look, I don't know who you are, but you said we were teammates. Isn't it normal that I worry over your condition?"

_Not in Team Seven, it isn't._

The words almost came out of her mouth, but she caught, chewed, and forced them back down her throat where they would stay.

"On our team, the word sort of varies."

He gave her a crooked grin, regardless of his confusion towards their history.

Something fluttered inside of her.

.

.

.

.

_The next morning_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_"Hey Kakashi-sensei! How's Sakura?"_

_Yellow carnations in hand, Naruto looked up at him from his perch in the usual tree._

_The tree they had all carved their names in._

.

.

.

.

_"I don't know."_

_"Oh..."_

_._

_._

_._

_"..."_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_"Are you okay, Sensei?"_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_"Never better."_

_With a page flip and a hand sign, he was gone._

_._

_._

_._

_._

When he got to Sakura's room, it was littered with flowers, making his bundle of yellow carnations look pathetic in front of the bouquets from Lee, Ino, Shizune and Sakura's nurse friends and students around the room.

Sakura reads his mind and puts on her best apologetic smile.

"Sorry it's so crowded in here. People forget there's not a lot of space in these hospital rooms."

The yellow balls of sunshine were placed on the bed side table, closest to her.

She moved over Ino's arrangement a few more inches.

"There. I love them. Thank you, Naruto."

He stands there a few more moments, unsure of what to do. The spot on the floor a few feet away from him was where he almost strangled the life out of Sasuke.

"How are you feeling?"

"Okay. Shishou won't let me leave the hospital yet, so I guess I'm not good," She shrugs, "I feel fine though."

The bags under Sakura's eyes and the pallor of her skin that showed in place of her peachy glow contradicted his previous statements. He didn't notice she wasn't taking care of herself.

He could've sworn they were taking care of her just fine.

The sound of a small hand patting the spot beside Sakura's body ripped him from his thoughts.

"Come lay with me."

The fact that the small twin bed allowed for the both of them to lie comfortably alerted Naruto to how thin Sakura was.

He didn't say anything though.

"How are you?"

She ran her hands through his unruly hair, untangling knots he didn't even know existed.

"Don't patronize me, Sakura-chan."

Sakura swallowed the bile that was threatening to crawl up her throat when he turned on his side facing away from her.

She should know how he felt.

She had said the same thing to Kakashi, hadn't she?

"I came here to tell you that if you hate me now, I don't blame you."

_Please, don't hate me._

"I hate that you didn't tell me. Not you."

_That's a lie. You almost killed Sasuke. Of course, I'm mad at you._

"Did you tell Kakashi the same thing?"

_I know you didn't. There's something you're not telling me. _

"No..."

_I couldn't._

"Why?"

_I'm tired of this._

"He's...different."

_There was a chance I could've been in love with him._

Naruto got up to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"To find some people that don't mind telling me that truth."

Naruto left.

Just like Kakashi.

So why didn't it hurt to see him go?

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_There was never a chance I could've been in love with Naruto._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_How far have I fallen?_

* * *

Okay, Part 10 will be up soon.

Read and review!

xx mm.


	10. Surveillance

**A/N:** I've tried a new format in putting things in perspective. It's not permanent (of course) but I guess it's always good to try new things.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter IX

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama, drama, and more drama.

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Note: **This is a little ugly baby chapter. It's not super well thought out and probably won't garner a lot of praise but I needed a little normal. Is that so wrong?

* * *

_06/17_

Person of interest leaves dwelling at 05:00, then moves to Training Ground 3 until 8:00. Uchiha Sasuke enters the resident building and then apartment of Citizen of Konoha, Haruno Sakura at 08:13. The two exit at 13:55 and travel to the market place. From 15:33 to 18:27, they spend time in the vicinity of the Northeastern Entrance of Konoha's Forest. At 20:15, Haruno Sakura was escorted by person of interest to her residence, who retired to his own dwelling for the rest of the evening.

/

_6/19_

POI remains in designated dwelling, Uchiha Manor of the Uchiha District of Konoha until 11:00. POI arrives at Haruno residence at 11:25. POI adjourns to personal residence at 22:35.

/

_06/22_

Surveillance begins at 05:00; POI awakens, but remains in dwelling until 12:15. 12:30; Uchiha Sasuke enters the residence of Haruno Sakura. POI stays there for the rest of the evening.

/

_6/23_

POI emerges from the UM of the Uchiha District of Konoha at 09:00 and goes to the residence of SH.

/

That was all he had for today.

It was already 9 in the evening.

When he proposed that Sasuke be watched, the last thing he had in mind was to be perched on a tree beside Sakura's living room window, watching the two figures inside at this exact moment.

But_ no_—

"If you think the Uchiha is up to no good, then you need to have a justified cause before you stomp in here and demand me to have a team of our ANBU trail after him all day! I'm short enough on ninja as it is!"

"YOU ALWAYS SAY WE'RE SHORT ON NINJA!"

—that old bat just had to pin the _whole job_ on him.

Naruto rubbed the sore spot on his head where "baa-chan" had thrown one of the D-Rank scrolls at his head.

(With dangerously accurate aim, if he might add.)

It had been a week since he had visited Sakura in the hospital and he had only felt worse about leaving her sitting there since then. He knew he had a right to be mad. He had a completely justified right to be mad.

But he also spent his entire childhood as an orphan, completely shunned and ostracized from the very village he grew to learn to give his life for.

Basic psychology dictates that once he gains beloved people in his life, he doesn't want to go so long without them.

The isolation that had grown to be his companion only got worse once he walked out of Sakura's hospital room and he yearned to make amends with her.

But there was just one problem.

_Sasuke._

He hadn't left her side since she had been released from her hospital stay.

Naruto hadn't been able to look Sasuke in the eye since he had almost—

He couldn't even think about it.

He almost_ killed_ his bestfriend.

He almost killed _Sasuke._

Throughout the endless fights to death or spars that resulted in gruesome injuries, plenty of killing intent had been displayed between them. Naruto had wanted to save Sasuke. Sasuke had tried to kill Naruto.

But this was for the sake of saving one another or overcoming the other.

Never had he ever wrapped his fingers around Sasuke's next and _squeezed_, just to fully end his existence.

It disgusted him that he was even capable of something like that.

It disgusted him_ even more_ that he didn't feel completely sorry for doing it.

Sasuke was like the brother he never had, but he felt no connection to the stranger that was currently sitting on the couch.

Sakura's feet in his lap, all smiles with no care in the world.

Why did he feel the urge to shield her from the danger he knew was coming?

* * *

"So you're telling me that I'm supposed to be obsessed with tomatoes?"

"Well not _obsessed_, per se."

"But... I ate them with every meal."

"...So maybe you _are_ a little obsessed."

"Hey, who knows? Maybe I don't like them anymore."

Sakura's head tilted back as a deep seated fit of giggles ruptured from the lowest part of her gut. She poked Sasuke in the gut with her foot and he chuckled. They had spent almost every day together since she was released from the hospital, just like this. Lazing around her home, getting to know each other.

It wasn't the same as before; she knew that.

She wasn't so deluded as to think she could gain the same butterflies-in-her-stomach, toe-curling, nirvana-inducing, kiss-for-bliss feeling that she had before. Part of the reason their relationship was so significant to her was because it meant they both had finally gotten over the past.

But, according to the man lounging beside her, they didn't have a past.

Only yesterday and the few days before that, after he had failed to catch her in his arms.

Yet, none of that mattered to her now.

She finally had him in her grip after so long.

They were only barely friends at this point, but it meant the world to her.

She had been away from him for what felt like forever.

For years.

Then, after his return, for months.

And after that, weeks.

She would take whatever she could get at this point.

"What about you?"

"...Huh?"

Her intelligent response turned the back of her neck red.

She was supposed to try and make him remember as someone he could have spent a future with at one point...

Not an incoherent idiot.

Sakura didn't realize she was hiding her face in her hands until Sasuke's fingers came up to pry them from her face.

Their fingers ended up intertwined.

"Is there anything you can't live without?"

"Well... not really..."

_Just you._

* * *

Thank you to everyone who has favorited and reviewed this so far. You guys have no idea how happy it makes me to know that people are actually reading this; especially since this is a website that is full of such amazing stories by writers who are just like me but write ten times better, haha. Anyway, thanks so much and I hope you enjoyed this.

Let me know what you think! Any theories on what's going on?

xx mm.


	11. Sasuke

**A/N:** I've tried a new format in putting things in perspective. It's not permanent (of course) but I guess it's always good to try new things.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter X

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Note: **This is a little more Sasuke-centric, as opposed to the other chapters, which have been more in the essence of Naruto and more of his thoughts on whats going on. I feel like there hasn't been enough SasuSaku in this since the third chapter, so I'm gonna try to and improve on making this a little more well rounded in the future. (Hope that didn't turn anyone off from this story!)

* * *

"Hey forehead! Don't cha' have anything besides ramen and junk in here for me to snack on? I know you're gonna blow up soon and all, but why so eager?"

The first thing he heard when he walked into Sakura's home wasn't a soft voice singing in the shower or the sound of pages of some kind of thorough and difficultly-comprehended medical text turning with care...

It was Ino.

The blonde was rummaging through Sakura's cabinets, looking for something even considerably healthy.

He'd come to become accustomed to the Yamanaka's voice; though not extremely pleasing to his ears, he imagined that Sakura was accustomed to the semi-shrill tonnage after so many years of being acquainted with the girl.

_"Yeah, Ino had a huge crush on you when we were younger, but that changed a long time ago."_

Thank goodness _that_ was over.

He couldn't tell what he would've done if _that_ was clinging to the form he was in all the time.

"Ino, lower your voice. You're giving me a headache."

"Psh, what-ev-er, Sakura. Just because you're preggers, doesn't mean you can use your newfound state of delicateness as an excuse to get me to shut up."

He didn't know why Ino and Sakura were such close friends, considering that half the time they spoke to each other—

"I don't know why you're my best friend."

"I'm the only one that has the patience to look at your huge forehead all day."

"I GREW INTO MY FOREHEAD YEARS AGO!"

—it was to insult each other.

"Sakura?"

His trained ears could pick up a mirage of whispers as Sakura and Ino were both alerted of his arrival.

Kunoichi from Konoha were so weird.

"Uh, Sasuke-kun? Is that you out there?"

"...Is now not a good time?"

"N-no it's fine! Just a second!"

He took a seat on the plush couch in front of him as Ino and Sakura emerged from the kitchen.

"Well, Sakura... I'll just leave you,"Ino bit back a knowning smile,"_to it_."

Sakura's low hung head couldn't even hide her embarrassment as Ino left with a wink and a bite of celery coated in peanut butter.

She looked so small and fragile in her fluffy white robe, feet bare on the hardwood flooring. In getting to know Sakura, he was becoming accustomed to her quirks. She didn't like changing into a real outfit unless she was going to go outside and be seen by others.

Apparently, he didn't count.

_"Of course you do! You're just... not everyone else."_

_Sakura's head tilted to the side, revealing a smooth expanse of her neck's skin. She struggled for the proper phrasing, but gave up on finding it by the end of the sentence. _

_He shook his head in disbelief at her 'okay whatever' attitude._

_"You know, many cultures still deem it 'indecent' if a proper lady doesn't get properly dressed in the presence of others, especially men."_

_She snorted at his lame attempt at asking if she knew she wasn't acting like a 'proper lady'._

_"I guess it's a good thing I'm not twelve and still desperate for your approval."_

_"Aren't you supposed to make it so your the only one I remember?"_

_"You come to my house every day, don't you?"_

That conversation had been back when he wasn't sure if she was the "Lovely Cherry Blossom of Konoha" he was supposed to be sitting next to. Now, he understood that the Haruno Sakura he heard about and the Sakura he was now relatively close to were two very different people.

The fading smell of peanut butter reminded him of the girl who just departed.

"She's here earlier than usual..."

The sentence hung uncomfortably in the air. It was a known fact that ever since Shikamaru disappeared on the mission Team 13 was sent on, Ino was suffering a greater loss than anyone dared speak about to her. It was a common occurrence that she come over to Sakura's apartment several times a week.

It was obvious to everyone that with the company Sakura, Choji and the rest of her fellow comrades generated, she was feeling better.

Team Asuma wasn't the only group suffering from missing teammates though.

Kiba and Shino were just beginning to emerge from Training Ground 7 to the general population again.

Tenten was mourning over Neji, who had finally set the gears in motion for the two to have a future together.

Lee was positively devastated over his missing rival and one of his closest friends. He was training as hard as ever in hopes to one day contribute to the effort to find him.

Overall, times were bleak for Konoha's 12. The disappearances on Team 13's mission led to an absence in happiness in the Hidden Leaf Village.

But, as all ninjas must do, they were coping the best they could.

Ino just happened to like stealing Sakura's food.

"She had a dream about Shikamaru last night. She's been here since 5 AM."

"I'm sorry."

Sakura gave him a warming smile and something of a reminiscent look.

"It's not your fault."

They sat together on her couch in silence for the rest of the morning, a pink head of hair strands skewed all over his shoulder.

Taking a look at Sakura's gentle face, he felt something sink to the bottom of his stomach.

"Sakura..."

"Hm?"

The vibration that erupted on his collarbone signaled her hum of affirmation.

"What am I to you?"

He also learned something else about Sakura in the time he'd spent with her so far.

"...Everything."

She was very open about her feelings.

From the tight hugs, to the tendency to leave every door to her apartment open at all times—they talked while she was in the _shower_, for crying out loud—Sakura was the perfect exoskeletory example of "self assured". She knew how she felt about people and she had no problem in saying so. It was obvious that she loved "Sasuke"; that at one point they had been much more more than teammates.

_"On our team, the word sort of varies."_

Or maybe they hadn't been.

Sakura had made it abundantly clear that once upon a far off time, Team Seven had been _that close_.

_"We've been through a lot together, for each other... for you. On Team Seven, we love each other... Lately it's been a little strained, per se, but that has a tendency to happen to even the closest of people."_

_"Is the team done because of me?"_

_He answered with a blunt question, as was expected of him._

_Sakura was quick to comfort, as expected of her._

_"NO! No, Sasuke. And the team is not over! It's just... this whole situation has been a long time coming. Take my word for it. This would've happened whether or not you still had your memory. We're not perfect."_

_He didn't speak. She looked far too angry with the discussion that he was considering dropping the entire subject._

_"I love them, but sometimes, it's just not enough."_

Basically, the definition of what they were long ago was not a question of whether they loved each other.

It was how much.

Undeniably, when he was with Sakura, he was sometimes overwhelmed by feelings that belonged to someone who was long gone in the grand scheme of things.

She was intoxicating, that was for sure.

But, in his other life, "Sasuke's" life... who was she to him?

_"I'M CARRYING SASUKE'S CHILD AND YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE DECENCY TO GET OVER BEING A FUCKING COWARD TO TELL ME HE HAD NO IDEA WHO I AM!"_

He might have the answer, but it meant nothing without an explanation.

* * *

He had expected a lot of things for this evening.

But he never imagined this_ scenario._

He was sitting across from two people that, with the person he was supposed to be, he should've seen more than the few times they had been in Tsunade's office and helping him move in since he arrived to Konoha.

He looked anywhere—the, now dormant, red light above the hospital door Ino was in, the nurses scrambling to put together the necessary forms for her stay, the white tile floors and the glass window covered by curtains, shielding the people inside the hospital room from the organized chaos outside—to avoid meeting the gaze of the man across from him.

Even with one showing eye and his calm countenance, the man was still intimidating.

Sakura had been drinking healing tea that the dark haired boy had prepared himself, with complaints about feeling ill since two days ago with something that wasn't quite morning sickness, but painful cramping, when everyone's favorite chubby ninja had practically banged down the door to Sakura's apartment. Before Choji had the chance to be chewed out by the other shinobi, he alerted Sakura with a shout of "INO'S IN THE HOSPITAL!"

Next thing he knew, Sakura was begging him to teleport the two of them to the hospital.

He did, latching onto the only familiar flicker of chakra he could feel, but could't quite distinguish, as a reference point.

He didn't know that chakra belonged to _Kakashi._

The one person he knew, by the murderous, yet masked by calm indifference, look being thrown at him, he should _not_ be left alone with in a quickly emptying hospital waiting room.

* * *

I hope this was enjoyable to all of my loyal readers.

Thank you so much to those who have been reading ever since this was posted, as well as those who just started reading. Your reviews and favorites are so kind!

xx mm.


	12. Team

**A/N:** I am so sorry I took so long to put something else out. Next update will be soon.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XII

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

"Hey...Sasuke."

It was Naruto.

Seated three chairs down from him was the orange clad, impossibly miserable looking boy, who was carefully avoiding his eyes.

It was bad enough Kakashi was trying to burn holes through his head without Naruto trying to fill the silence-saturated tension with some half-assed attempt at conversation.

He almost uttered a "dobe", on reflex.

Oh yes, Sakura had filled him in on the nickname game they used to play.

He gave a nod in Naruto's direction, letting him know he heard him. He couldn't very well ignore the guy. It sounded like something he should've done, but he didn't personally have anything against Naruto nowadays...

Except for the whole strangling incident.

Naruto tried to kill him.

But without that incident he would've never came into Sakura's hospital room and gotten to know her.

Naruto Uzumaki was supposed to be his best friend; he was the boy who had gone to the ends of the world and different dimensions to find him when he left Konoha.

He succeeded in bringing him home, of course.

_"But, we lost you again. Then again, you're still here in one piece, right? That's enough." _

Sakura threw that line to him all prettily packaged with an encouraging smile; He got the message though.

Sasuke wasn't who _he_ was.

_He_ was a lost human being, clinging to a girl who seemed to know so much about what it meant to be _Sasuke_.

Naruto probably knew even more about what that meant. He was supposed to be his best friend, right?

He wanted to ask Naruto a few questions, but his body language clearly described how guilty he seemed to feel in his presence.

He still wasn't completely informed on why he left Konoha, but even trying to steer conversation towards that topic made Sakura unhappy.

Naruto already looked unhappy.

Pushing that envelope probably wasn't a good idea.

He turned his gaze towards the window covered observatory style windows of Ino's room.

When they had first arrived, Sakura ran right in, nearly elbowing one of the new interns in the face when she tried to stop her.

He hadn't seen her since.

According to Choji, it all started a few days ago when Ino was setting up outside the Yamanaka Flower Shop, earlier than usual. Someone had attacked her, but all she had acquired was a tiny scratch and some dust on her apron. Today, he had gone to pick Ino up for lunch and her mother told him she wasn't feeling well. Concerned, he stayed with her, but all of a sudden she started to heave.

That was when blood began to ooze from her gums.

Then her dry heaves turned into a partially digested version of her breakfast tainted with a crimson sheen.

She passed out and hit her head on the full length mirror in front of her bathroom.

Mindful of the glass covered floor, Choji brought her to the hospital right away.

Afterwards, he came, banging down the door to Sakura's apartment.

By the time he blinked from his thoughts, the waiting room was empty from everyone besides the three males of Team Seven.

Not even the sound of a heart monitor could be heard.

Naruto coughed awkwardly.

"Um..."

Choji's head poked out awkwardly from the white door, cutting off Naruto's words.

They probably would've only made things worse anyway.

"Sasuke?"

His head snapped up to attention.

So did Kakashi's.

"Sakura said you could go back to her place and wait for her. She's going to be here for a while."

"I can wait."

"She said to leave."

Kakashi's sentence bit on to the back of his and ended with a chopped sound, as if his teeth had cut off the rest of what he wanted to say.

Sakura had told him quite a bit about Kakashi Hatake, as well.

Speaking about him left a bitter taste in her mouth, he could tell. It was in the way she pursed her lips and swallowed words that fought for their freedom from her mouth. He was their old jonin instructor when their trio was still twelve. This man taught him his most utilized technique, Chidori, which he was told he used against him in battle after his defection.

"_In retrospect, I guess you were his favorite because you were the most alike. He saw himself in_ _you and tried to help you." _

If all that was true, why did he look like he wanted to gauge his eye out, yet remain seated so he wouldn't waste the comfortable position he found in these horrid waiting room chairs?

It was all lost on him.

Something obviously happened that made Kakashi eye him like he was black mold growing in his apartment.

Of course, he didn't know _what_, but the man had just told him to beat it.

A man that was supposed to be the closest thing to a father he seemed to have in his childhood.

"He can wait for me if he wants to, Kakashi."

Choji having long ago slipped his head back into the room, five eyes snapped in Sakura's direction.

She only looked at the man she had addressed.

Shoulders back, spine straight, head held just high enough.

Unafraid.

Was she always like this?

What was Sakura like as a genin, back when Kakashi had him under his wing and the only thing that Naruto wanted near his throat was ramen?

He wondered about this on a regular basis.

Again, his eyes flew to Naruto, who looked at Sakura with such an unconcealed longing it almost made him feel abandoned on a level he couldn't comprehend.

Sakura did say Naruto was always the open one.

He really should try and talk to him. It was about time he got all the details about who he was. If he had to get close to Naruto to know more about himself, and Sakura maybe, then it was something he could do.

"Of course he can."

The sarcastic edge to his words made Naruto flinch, who had taken to trying to sink into his chair as far as he could, but keep an eye on the events unfolding in front of him at the same time.

Sakura ignored Kakashi's words with a head tilt in Sasuke's direction.

"Sasuke, come over here."

No suffix.

Maybe she wasn't as unaffected as he thought?

A beat passed before Naruto spoke up.

"Sakura-chan... Can I come in too?"

A strange look passed over her face when she turned to answer the hopeful blonde.

Almost as if she was in pain.

"Sorry, Naruto. Shishou requested him."

Sasuke couldn't have walked any faster towards her, sliding the door shut behind him.

* * *

The insides of her eyelids were red.

The sun was blinding.

The fluorescent lightbulbs in the room hasn't be turned on yet, at least.

A quick whiff of something that was too _too_ clean reminded her of a hospital.

So did the hustle and bustle outside the room she was trying to get a good look at.

As did the white tile ceiling of the room she was laying in.

"You awake?"

She couldn't see the owner of the voice very well. Her neck hurt too much to crane and the sunbeams were still blinding.

Arms encircled her and helped her into sitting position, the pain causing her to clench her eyes and jaws in understandable agony.

A glass of water raised to her lips and without thinking, she gulped down the glass's contents.

She dug her fists into her eyes for a bit of clarity.

When she opened them, there was someone too beautiful and intriguing to be a nurse beside her bed.

"Hey there."

Deep, velvety smooth baritone reminded her of something chocolatey.

Her stomach groaned from beneath the gown she wore.

She was too busy staring at the man's face to be embarassed.

"Don't worry, Sakura will be back with lunch soon."

"...Huh?"

Who was Sakura?

Who was he?

"Oh, right. Tsunade said you might be a little confused once you woke up..."

Who was Tsunade?

Who was _he_?

"Haruno Sakura is your best friend. I'm Uchiha Sasuke."

Sasuke, huh?

It sounded pretty in her head.

She rolled the letters of his name around on her tongue before testing it out.

"...Sasuke?"

Dark hair. Pale skin. Dark eyes. Strong jaw. Long eye lashes. Impossibly tall. Aristocratic nose. Big hands. Perfect lips.

So many conflicting features.

How interesting.

"Hn?"

"_Where am I?_"

* * *

Hopefully, you guys enjoyed this one. I know it wasn't very good but the next one will be better! Promise!

xx mm.


	13. Wrong

**A/N:** I am so sorry I took so long to put this up. I've been super busy, but please enjoy this.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XIII

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Warning: **Attack of the subplot!

* * *

Her smile was sleepy as she looked at him from under her long eyelashes. They reached the very tops of her rosy cheeks, smooth and unblemished by scars in battles like the rest of her skin. The bangs that usually fell into her face were tossed back and spread like a halo with the rest of her hair as they laid sprawled out on the grass, watching the clouds.

Her laugh was like windchimes at something he said distractedly while he watched the way the smallest blows of wind played with the ends of her shiny hair—Sasuke was entranced by the young woman at his side.

The slow rise and fall of her chest, the slope of her toned stomach as she breathed in serenely.

It was like he had known her all his life, but he knew this was not true. There was a period of time not too long ago where he could say he thought all the time about how the hell he could've been acquainted with this strange girl and in what ways during a past where, he was told, he almost had it all.

At first, about a month ago, he didn't actually know who this girl was. At all. He'd seen her so often, all smiles and laughter, that she wasn't a stranger, but nothing of substance could be noted. It was only by a little pushing of some unavoidable circumstances that he even came to know her on a night where everything was so confusing and hectic.

He recalled questioning why he was even in the hospital for her to begin with.

But soon enough, he was pulled in and he couldn't do a thing about it.

In all of her mystery and the new chance he got, they ended up here, on top of the hillside, looking over the the entirety of Konoha.

Sakura had shown him this place a few weeks after they'd started to spend time together; Back when he first tried to solve the mystery that was 'them'.

A small hand reached across and cupped his face, thumb stroking his cheek and she leaned in, eyes closed, breath mingling with his.

A side pressed into his and everything just felt so... _right_.

His lips moved to meet Ino's.

They didn't break apart until long after they needed air.

* * *

"Sakura-chan!"

A pink head of hair swished to meet the quickly approaching figure of Naruto. The grip on her basket tightened slightly and her shoulders tensed a little, but he pretended not to notice.

It had been such a long time since he approached her, in the market place or anywhere at all. She remembered the look he gave her the night of Ino's attack and a guilt settled in her stomach.

"Hey, Naruto. What brings you here?"

The blonde looked disheveled and sloppily put together, as if he had rolled out of bed and threw on his clothes to meet a deadline.

With a couple of huffs to regulate his breathing, Naruto stood up straight to peer down at Sakura from his height advantage.

"Oh, nothing much," The remnants of heavy breathing contradicted his statement, "I was just gonna get some dinner at Ichiraku. Wanna come?"

Damn him.

Ever since she discovered she was pregnant, her intake of ramen had about tripled and it was a regular craving of hers.

It didn't help that Teuchi always made sure to give her extra slices of pork in her ramen ever since Ayame had quietly deduced the reason for her change in diet.

News of her pregnancy wasn't exactly well known around Konoha. Sakura stopped giving into gossiping old ladies a long time ago and her circle of friends weren't talkers—well, except Ino, but she knew better than to open her mouth about private matters...usually. But she was getting bigger everyday, and at 15 weeks, it was starting to get noticeable. The warm weather of July made it easy for her to wear loose fitting sun dresses, since she wasn't exactly working at the hospital or training for the time being. Her naturally petite size ensured she wouldn't blow up like a balloon, but the differences in her regularly slim and toned physique were starting to be commented on.

The pork ramen wasn't exactly helping.

"Sure, Naruto. Let's go."

He took the basket of tomatoes and strawberries in her hand and started to walk beside her.

As they walked, whispers followed them. Normal civilians were sometimes ignorant to the honed senses of the ninja—their hearing was supreme.

After a group of women carrying shopping bags from the nearest mall district commented on her weight gain, Sakura couldn't help but feel a little insecure.

Especially with the most recent series of events.

With Ino out of the hospital, but suffering from memory loss, Sakura had encouraged Sasuke to spend some time with her whenever he could. More than needing to remember important aspects about who she used to be, Sakura and Tsunade had agreed that Ino needed to be around someone who understood her present struggle.

The first time Sasuke and Ino had spent time together, alone, was about a month ago—just days after Ino was released from the hospital.

Since then, she had been seeing Sasuke progressively less and less. Don't get her wrong, she didn't expect to always be his only companion, and he still saw her at least once a week, but it was obvious that Sasuke was struck by this woman that wasn't loud or a dedicated gossip.

This new Ino was a lot more thoughtful than she used to be—a quality Sasuke appreciated with or without his memory.

Not that she wasn't thoughtful before, but not everyone knew just how pensive and patient the Ino was.

A frown tugged at her once she thought of the smile on Sasuke's face when he stopped by her apartment that morning to say hi.

He seemed so lighthearted and excited at the thought of seeing Ino.

How could he not?

Ino was as beautiful as a violet cosmos flower, still thriving.

The cherry blossom she was named for had already bloomed and withered, leaving the wind to carry the shriveled pieces away into oblivion.

She felt a bitter taste in her mouth at the thought of how miserable seeing him so happy made her.

"Sakura-chan? You okay?

She didn't realized she stopped walking and was currently staring at her sandaled feet, shoulders hunched over, hands crossed over her stomach as if to protect herself.

"Naruto..."

He walked back over to her and hooked her hand onto his arm.

"Yes. Thank you."

Naruto gave her his regular, brightly lot smile, only this was the first time in a while she saw that he meant it.

"Anything for you, Sakura-chan. Now let's go get some ramen! I'm starved!"

His "teehee"s were lost in the dust he made while he dragged her to the stand a few yards away.

Somewhere along the way, she started to run with him.

They sat side by side on the stools at the front of the ramen bar, totally disregarding that Teuchi had long since expanded his restaurant and had multiple tables inside. The chatter and laughs coming from the other section of Ichiraku's, past a sliding screen door set a nice tone to their dinner, making sure things never got to quiet.

Naruto bumped her shoulder with his as he slurped up a considerable helping of noodles, broth drops flying everywhere on the counter.

The pinkette couldn't bring herself to wrinkle her nose in disgust, though. The action was just so... _Naruto_.

She couldn't bare to admonish him for it.

They hadn't spoken for a month, yet here they were, side by side, eating ramen.

"Naruto."

"Sakura-chan."

They're names jumbled together as they called out to each other at the same time.

Sakura let him go first.

"I'm sorry I got mad at you for not telling me everything. I wasn't even sure there was something to tell and I abandoned you for it."

"About that..."

His hand covered hers in a gesture of silence as he continued.

"I want you to tell me stuff, but I can't ask you to do that if I don't do the same thing. Kakashi and I should've told you—there was no excuse for us not to. Whatever it is that happened in the past, you don't have to tell me now. Or ever. I'm okay with that. But I'm not okay with being away from you all the time. I don't like it when you're mad at me and I don't like being mad at you..."

He trailed off for a second to stroke her knuckles with his big, calloused thumb. It was comforting.

"I was so happy for you and Teme when you guys finally got together. I remember walking into your place one morning and finding you guys on the couch. It was gross, but great at the same time."

They both laughed at the memory, Sakura's eyes tearing at the corners.

Naruto had dropped his microwave ramen and then tackled them both with a hug.

They were still naked.

"But when you guys got together, we felt a little left out—"

"We?"

"Kakashi-sensei and I. We were happy for you guys, but you were spending less time around us and it kinda hurt. Things got better, but then Sasuke left and everything got messed up and you told me you were pregnant..."

He laced his fingers through hers.

"I was so happy, because you were spending all your time with us again, but then I saw you and Kakashi and I thought that something happened. I felt left out. Then we got Sasuke back and everything got worse and I'm so sorry for everything and I promise—"

Sakura's free hand came up to smack over Naruto's mouth.

"No more promises. I don't need them. I love you and that's enough."

Then, as if they hadn't even spoken, Sakura picked up her chopsticks and continued eating.

The splatters of broth on her arm signaled Naruto's happier-than-usual slurping had started up again.

She didn't bother hitting him over the head for it. It was a warmness she welcomed.

Naruto walked her home that night, all smiles from their dinner and chattering animatedly.

For a second, everything seemed like it was before Sasuke returned. Just her and him walking, the smell of Ichiraku's and the sound of Teuchi and Ayame's goodbyes far behind him.

Then reality set back in as two figures sitting on the steps of building emerged from the shadows of a late sunset.

Sasuke looked up and smiled at her as Ino waved from her perch on the top step.

With a glance at their joined hands, she wanted to flee.

But Naruto was already pulling her and Ino cupped her hands around her mouth to say something and Sasuke was...still...smiling.

She did the only thing she could do.

Two expert fingers went to the back of her neck and hit a particular spot that, along with a thirteen year old boy and a bench, made up her worst nightmare.

Everything went black.

_Run, Sakura. Run. That's all you know how to do now, isn't it?_

The darkness and self-loathing was something she welcomed.

* * *

"Kakashi. This is an inside job. There's no way a foreign nin would've been able to get close enough to Inuzuka. Everyone's been on high alert since Yamanaka got attacked."

Kakashi stayed silent as Tsunade threw the files of Team Kakashi, Team Guy, Team Asuma, and Team Kurenai onto her desk with a fatigue that showed how long she hadn't slept.

They had both been up for days, but for different reasons.

Tsunade had been investigating some crazy hunch she had after she won at bingo the other night.

Kakashi had taken 3 S-rank assassination missions under his belt in the span of 3 weeks.

He slouched a little more in the chair in front of the Godaime's desk and listened again to her crazy theory.

Shizune wasn't even in the room for this serious sign of psychosis in her mentor. She was too busy contributing to it by analyzing the available poison samples over and over.

"Team 13, with Nara Shikamaru, Hyuuga Neji, Hyuuga Hinata and Uchiha Sasuke, was sent on a mission in April. Uchiha Sasuke was recovered with major injuries with memory loss while the rest of Team 13 remains missing. Yamanaka Ino was attacked by an unknown person, escaped seemingly unscathed, but later on experiences symptoms of being poisoned. She also has memory loss. Inuzuka Kiba, same jounin group as the rest of the aforementioned parties, was attacked this morning at 5:35 AM. Aburame Shino found him with the same symptoms as Yamanaka when she was brought in to the hospital. Kiba has yet to wake up, but if he emerges with memory loss, I'm going to start interrogations within the jounin ranks. This is too coincidental and flawless to not be an inside job."

"Very well, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade huffed loudly and blonde hairs fluttered.

"Kakashi, cut the professional crap. I need your help with this. I need you to investigate this and I need you to keep whatever bitch fit you've been having away from this investigation. Your work's been suffering since that day Naruto strangled Sasuke."

Kakashi chose not to seem this with a reply and instead nodded.

"Good. Do you have any idea where to start?"

"A good ninja analyzes the situation from every possible angle before he makes his move."

"Start with Uchiha."

It was obvious she wasn't going to tolerate any of his roundabout statements today.

A few tense beats passed before he acknowledged her words and left the room, leaving leaves and dissipating smoke in his wake.

* * *

Tell me what you think?

Main plot will keep moving next chapter.

xx mm.


	14. Picture

**A/N:** I know, I know. I just put up the last chapter. But I couldn't resist.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XIV

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

Kakashi reviewed the notes that he'd taken on Sasuke so far.

He hadn't been anywhere near Sakura's apartment since three days ago and now he was parading all over Konoha with Yamanaka Ino—who had recently been attacking and was suffering from memory loss much like him.

The two had only been apart to sleep thus far. It was just so bizarre that he couldn't wrap his head around it. Everyone in Konoha and out of Konoha knew who the endgame for Uchiha Sasuke was, yet here he was, so far spending 56 out of the last 72 hours with the blonde that he had always been clear about finding completely irritating in the worst way. Yamanaka Ino was brash and loud and a gossip.

Sure, she was _pretty—_that was something even Asuma could admit.

But Sasuke had never seen her in that light.

Sasuke had never seen anyone but _one_ _girl_ in that light.

It was an interesting turn of events, but it wasn't as if he could arrest Sasuke for this.

Kakashi ran a hand through his messy silver hair and rubbed at his Sharingan eye that was uncovered as he sat on his bed, hunched over the notebook he'd been carrying all day.

He couldn't exactly say that Ino was all that she used to be. The blonde he'd seen at Sasuke's side, blushing at his offering of a rose, shyly sharing an order of dango with him, was the antithesis of who Kakashi had seen at Sakura's side on occasion. Being with Team Seven since their reunion, Sakura had seen little of Ino, barely enough to still refer to the girl as her best friend.

Lying in bed one night Sakura had confessed that the girl was more of a fair weather friend, ever since she had yelled at her after the false confession to Naruto and the knocking out of a few others in Konoha's 12 during her attempt to kill Sasuke, a man she loved too much to kill, even in his darkest hour.

The thought of love made Kakashi's left eye itch again.

It would be a lie to say that he hadn't been thinking of Sakura's words ever since that day she was hospitalized. They hadn't so much as looked at each other since then, with the exception of the day Ino was attacked. Kakashi could only recall telling himself to relax in the presence of the clueless Uchiha, but once he opened his mouth, an unnameable feeling crawled out from the darkest depths of him and made him tell Sasuke to go home.

To tell the truth, the last words she said to him had wounded much more than his pride.

This wasn't to say that he loved Sakura. He didn't. She just reminded him so much of another medic he'd failed to help, another kind eyed girl with a soft smile that nurtured more than wounds. Sakura was someone he'd failed repeatedly, wounded in unimaginable ways, but she was so quick to remind him of all his failures, knowing how mindful he was of them more than anyone else.

She got under his skin in a way that no one possibly could.

Well... no one alive, anyway.

She had hurt him with her words, but he couldn't help but imagine the pain she was enduring at this exact moment—to watch someone she wanted so badly be with someone else is indescribably painful.

He couldn't say he knew the feeling.

He wouldn't admit to himself how much he did know the feeling.

A part of him wanted to reach out and comfort her. The other other part of him wanted her to suffer.

He didn't know which part was bigger.

Snapping the notebook closed and pulling his covers over his face, Kakashi stared at the ceiling in a way reminiscent of what felt to be a long time ago.

For a second, he thought he felt the warmth of a small body beside him.

* * *

"I can't believe you're doing this for him."

"Naruto, I'd do and have done the same for you."

"That's not what I'm saying and you know it."

Sakura chose not to respond to that one and Naruto just flopped back onto her couch. Sasuke's birthday was a four days away and the kunoichi just insisted on throwing the Uchiha a party**—**even though he didn't even know when his birthday was. It was a nice thought, very Sakura-like, Naruto thought. Yet, there were some things that didn't make sense to him. He may not be the smartest ninja around like Shikamaru or a prodigy like Neji, but he surpassed most in a particular field of knowledge.

_People._

He knew people. He knew that he knew people. Naruto could admit that there were times he didn't act like it but come on. He was friends with almost _everyone. _

Therefore, he knew people.

However, even with all his expertise in this field, he couldn't comprehend Sakura's actions. She was in love with Sasuke. So desperately in love with him that once on a mission she threatened to make a daimyo's daughter bald after she tried to ravage the broody guy in the middle of the night. That sure was an interesting situation to explain to Tsunade.

If _he_ would've done that to someone, then it'd be a huge problem.

(Not that he cared who slept with Sasuke.)

But since _Sakura_ did it, it was totally justified and "a means of successfully calming a nuisance that would have hindered a teammate's accessibility and accountability during a mission", quoting the old lady.

Talk about a double standard...

Naruto shook his head and got back on track with his attempted deep contemplation.

Sakura was in love with Sasuke since she met him. She ended her friendship with Ino for years over Sasuke. She was the one who saw Sasuke on the night he left the village to join Orochimaru and, although no one besides those two would ever know what actually happened that night, he could tell by her complete broken down exterior that a part of her still felt like a failure for letting him leave, regardless of what anyone else told her. Sakura was the one who convinced Tsunade and the council in endless debates that Sasuke shouldn't be put to death for his crimes. Then, about an entire year later, they finally got together, which was supposed to be the end of their story. They were supposed to get married, have children, live in the Uchiha Compound together and then get buried together under Sakura's favorite tree on the highest hill in Konoha, overlooking the whole village. Instead, Sakura got pregnant with Sasuke's child and let him leave on an S-rank mission without telling him, only to have him return with no memory of anything or anyone. As soon as it seems they are reconnecting, Ino loses her memory after an attack, promptly ending up with Sasuke as her _fucking_ _boyfriend_ since Sasuke found something in her that he liked after he was forced to spend time with her.

And now, Sakura's actually going to the trouble of throwing him a birthday party.

_A birthday party._

What was happening?

"Naruto, shut up."

He hadn't realized he was ranting aloud.

"I just don't get it Sakura-chan! Ino...and Sasuke...Aren't you mad?"

He could hear Sakura's chopping of an onion slow down from his spot on the couch and went to the kitchen.

The minute he sat in one of the stools in front of the counter, her pace picked up again, as if she was unaffected. Most times, the view of Sakura in her mint green painted kitchen, with the stainless steel appliances she picked out because they looked more "sterile" and the bamboo counter he would twiddle his thumbs at was a soothing picture. The only parts from the scene missing were Kakashi and his neon book on Naruto's left and Sasuke with his chin in his palm on the right.

Now, everything looked so sad.

There was a time where he would've been happy to have Sakura all to himself.

No Kakashi.

And especially no Sasuke.

But sitting in the kitchen, knowing why those two weren't here sitting in the empty stools, felt like he was missing thumbs.

He understood why he needed Kakashi and Sasuke around—it made him feel more human.

"Naruto, I know that you don't want me to do this for Sasuke, but I'm his teammate. That's what teammates do. Just because he's dating Ino, doesn't mean I can be mad about it."

"You're carrying his child, Sakura!"

The frown on Sakura's face turned into a thin line.

She knew that. And she didn't have to be reminded by the look on Naruto's seriously agitated face.

Putting a hand down to her slightly protruding stomach, she could feel the faint glow of what was supposed to be her child.

What was supposed to be Sasuke's child.

The chakra of an _Uchiha_ was in her womb.

There was a time where nothing would've made her happier, but that time had passed and the present had warped the creation of a beautiful human being into something ugly and warped. The moment she saw Ino and Sasuke's hands clasped so tightly, and a smile on the usually smirking guy's face, something in her snapped. The moment she hit the pressure point on the back of her neck, the same that Sasuke had used years ago, she came to a conclusion that wasn't as startling or as devastating as it should've been.

But for now, all she did was give Naruto a weak "I know" and wait for later.

She would soon fix what had been broken from the start.

* * *

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, even though it was more transition.

**As for KakaSaku: **On another note, as for the story of Kakashi and Sakura, I've been getting some PMs asking if I'm going to have a lemon about how that whole KakaSaku thing happened. I'm not sure yet. It would probably be one chapter if I did that, since I try to keep my chapters short and uncluttered. Also, there's the matter of the rating change. I don't want to do anything that'll turn off a lot of readers from the story. Let me know what you think. **Lemon: **Yes or No?

Until next time!

xx mm.


	15. Understanding

**A/N:** Yay for quick updating!

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XV

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Note: **This chapter is Kakashi and Sakura based. It's NOT romantic. Just student/teacher bond here, folks.

* * *

Sakura looked at Naruto's sleeping figure on her bed. He'd been so tired from dinner, falling asleep at 8 that night, that if this were a regular night, she would have woken him right up.

But this was no regular night.

She made sure to slip a helping of pulverized Valerian into Naruto's broth before serving him his ramen. Valerian was known to have tranquilizing qualities.

She couldn't have him waking up in an hour, wondering where she went.

The cool summer twilight was comfortable enough to wander in without an extra layer and the loose off-white, sleeveless dress with crochet designs she wore flowed a little in the unpredictable breeze.

Her feet carried her to a place she hadn't been in almost two months, a place she had been too scared to go to.

She knew he'd let her in.

He always did.

It was just a wonder if he would do it without slamming the door in her face a few times first.

Her heart thumped in her ears, alerting her to danger as adrenaline, that she had dearly missed, pumped through her.

Then, she heard it.

The telltale sounds of a pained human in agony not too far from her and two pairs of distant footsteps: one growing closer, the other going in the opposite direction of the noise.

Sakura ran as fast as she could through the paved roads of the village without the help of her chakra, getting a little winded from the strenuous activity due to being months out of practice.

Her senses led her to the familiar place where Konoha's general village and the Uchiha District met. She took a right on the sidewalk, going onto a dirt path through a thicket of trees to the pier she watched the sunrise from every morning.

She stumbled onto a sight she hadn't expected.

Kakashi, fully clothed in his jounin uniform, pushed himself up from the warm water lake, using the sturdy wooden dock to support his weight as he carried what looked to be a dark green clad figure on his shoulder. The jounin set down the body of the young man he had obviously just fished out of the water.

The orange leg warmers and black mop of hair pushed her towards the scene.

On his back, Rock Lee hoked on water he had almost drowned in and was still in danger of drowning in.

Kakashi moved to pull his mask down, but Sakura, having her duty as a medical ninja drilled into her by her Shishou, caused him to halt in his ministrations.

"Kakashi, move. I'll take it from here."

"You can't use chak—"

"I don't need it. Move."

Kakashi assisted her in pulling Lee's body higher up on the dock, closer to Sakura, who knelt down to give him mouth to mouth.

She expertly began to do the 30 presses on her chest, tilting his head back, pinching his nose, and making the airtight seal with her lips.

Kakashi mused darkly on how Lee would have—and almost—died to finally get a kiss from Sakura.

Even if it was just the kiss of life.

Soon Lee began to cough up the water in his lungs, and lips hidden from view by a hunched over head of pink hair smiled victoriously. Lee would live.

She continued the CPR, satisified as the water continued to empty through Lee's mouth. It was supposed to make it easier for him to breathe.

But then he started to shiver and his fingers and lips were cold.

This startled Sakura, who knew the temperature of the lake wasnt enough to give him hypothermia. This kind of body temperature drop could only be cause by a few other things, such as—

That was when Lee started to gurgle on his own blood, the colloidal substance flooding Sakura's mouth who almost choked on it herself.

Red flowed from her mouth onto the frock she wore, drying on the corners of her lips.

It looked more like she ate from Lee, than gave him life.

Sakura finally noticed the many bruises on his neck that looked oddly peculiar—darker at the center and then spreading until they faded with the skin's natural tone.

They had small pin marks in the middle, reminiscent of someone being stabbed with a syringe full of ink...

"Kakashi..."

By the time she finished uttering his name, he was already gone with Lee, obviously transporting to the hospital.

She ran as fast as she could in the direction of the Hokage Tower.

/

"Lee's resting right now. You two saved him."

Sakura let out a long relieved breath while Kakashi slouched a little more in the waiting room chair, obviously more relaxed.

"We'll talk about the details tomorrow. For now, I want you two to get home. Kakashi, walk Sakura to her place. I have a feeling it's not too safe out there."

Tsunade looked back and forth between the two ninja.

Kakashi was a dripping mess that left water all over the floor for the graveyard shift janitor to clean up while Sakura looked like a cannibalistic ghost girl who left little pieces of crusty dried blood everywhere.

She didn't know if it was safe to leave these two alone, but she didn't have much of a choice.

Hesitantly, reluctantly, and just plain old awkwardly, the two made their way from the hospital at three in the morning.

"You don't have to walk me. I don't live very far."

He already knew that, of course.

The faint sound of crickets hummed in her ears. In a couple of hours, the sun was sure to rise.

"Why are you awake right now?"

The question was so abrupt and so blunt and so him that she really didn't have a right to be caught off guard. Hatake Kakashi might've given her ambiguous words of advice when she was younger—when he gave her advice, at all—but after she grew up, he turned into a very straightforward individual.

Or maybe she just started to notice he was like that all along.

Either way, there had been no beating around the bush or puzzles to decode since she was 16 years old.

He either told her exactly what he meant or didn't tell her anything at all—extremes that never worked quite well together.

"I was just out, taking a stroll. I couldn't sleep."

The man beside her stopped walking and turned to look at her directly. Sakura was too surprised to do the same.

"Answer the question. And don't lie this time."

Her eyebrows furrowed together at the clipped, authoritative tone he sounded like he was forced to grind from his clamped jaw.

As if he had to _force_ himself to talk to her.

"Are you interrogating me? You don't think I had anything to do with Lee being in the hospital just now... Right?"

"As the jounin that found him, and you being the only other witness of the ongoing scene, it does make you a bit of a prime suspect, Haruno."

This made her eyes widen and then narrow in fury.

What the fu—?

"Haruno? Did you just call me '_Haruno_'?"

She took a step closer to Kakashi just to get in his face, secretly hoping in the deepest recesses of her mind that he would react in some way, like he usually did when it involved her.

It would be some sign that things hadn't changed.

That he hadn't changed.

That she hadn't changed.

In response, he took a step in her direction, their chests bumping as they glared at one another for a few seconds.

Then, Sakura recoiled. She took a step back from him and her shoulders hunched, as if to swallow herself into her very own body, just to disappear before his very eyes.

A long frustrated sigh left Kakashi's covered mouth.

He was tired of her running and hunching and disappearing and pushing. Besides the two parts of him that either wanted to see her beside him or watch her suffer without his presence, there was also his superego constantly criticizing him for wanting her to yearn for his presence in her life.

Of all the people he lost in his life, not one ever had even the slightest of chances of running back to him, as if he meant something.

They were all dead.

Now, he wanted Sakura to miss him.

Not run away.

As if she hadn't done enough of that already and as if he had ever had anyone who wanted or needed to hold onto him before.

It was either a mulish resolve or complete loss of hope with this one—extremes that never worked quite well together.

"I was looking for you."

An unsure hand pats his forearm, grips it, and then lets it go.

It is an awkward gesture and nothing like he had thought.

But way more than he had dared hope.

Inside, in the most secure confines of his gut, the terrible contractions that erupted from anxiety and self loathing stopped for a moment.

Sakura continued to walk, leaving him to catch up. His longer legs gave him the advantage but he slowed down enough to stay at her place. He knew Sakura usually went to the dock at this time, to wait for the sun to rise, but she led him to her apartment instead.

The went through the front entrance.

They walked past the flights of stairs that eventually led to her apartment, going through a door at the other end of the first floor.

It led to the back entrance, which was located next to a fire escape that they climbed until they reached the roof.

Sakura went into a chest on the far end and retrieved a large, old quilt and found beach chairs that were folded up in the corner.

They sat side by side, both draped under the quilt, although Kakashi made sure to give the majority to Sakura.

They didn't speak about what had happened or why they hadn't spoken until that sunrise, but they both reached a mutual understanding and talked about other things.

Sakura talked about making miso ramen for dinner that night.

Kakashi reminded her to put extra pieces of eggplant in the miso for him.

Sunrise was at 4:39 that morning and they spoke quietly throughout the entire thing.

Sakura didn't pray for everyone and Sasuke.

Kakashi didn't sit by quietly until she finished, giving her false tales about his student's "soon return, safe and sound".

They talked of dinner and Lee and the new book on Greek mythology Sakura had just purchased and things that held no real value to either of them, but held the upmost importance to them both.

Until the sun finished rising in the sky and the market vendors began to set out their vast displays of produce.

That was when Sakura said something Kakashi would later say affected his life forever, in retrospect.

"I can't have this baby."

The old strawberry vendor tried to content himself with a batch of nearly spoiled strawberries.

* * *

Tell me what ya think!

**IMPORTANT NOTE: **I'm looking for a Beta Reader and I'm not sure how that thing works, soooo some help or some offers would be great.

Also, it doesn't seem like the KakaSaku flashback lemon will happen, but i'd still like everyone's opinions on a SasuSaku lemon in the future.

xx mm.


	16. The New

**A/N:** This is what watching Gone Withe The Wind a million consecutive times in one weekend does to you: Ridiculously Quick Updating.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XVI

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

Naruto woke up to the smell of vanilla cake and breakfast.

A good, albeit strange, combination.

A trail of saliva stuck to the edge of his mouth from the position he slept on Sakura's pillow. Peeling the case off the feather stuffed cushion and throwing it into the black, woven hamper in the corner of the room, Naruto straightened his Beaver sleeping cap and stumbled to Sakura's kitchen, groping the wall as a reference.

Kakashi was at the counter without a book or a uniform...or a mask. It was still a pretty weird sight.

A few days ago, he had awoken to an empty apartment, but feeling out for Sakura's (slightly bigger) chakra, he found her on the roof. With Kakashi.

All Naruto did was slide in between them, taking up valuable space, and snuggling into the cozy quilt they were under.

He knew people.

He didn't have to _ask_ anyone to know that Kakashi and Sakura made up.

He was no _amateur_.

After that day, they had been having a non-stop sleepover at Sakura's apartment. Each night, Naruto and Kakashi alternated between being on the couch or in Sakura's bed.

She just _had_ to go turn her other bedroom into an office.

"Before we bring the party over to the Teme's house, can we visit Bushy Brows?"

A sad look came over Sakura's face before she perked up again.

"We can even stop and get him some flowers."

Naruto nodded and got a head start on his breakfast.

In retrospect, they could've lived without the flowers. So could Lee. What they barely lived through, however, was the suffocating cloud of awkward that was floating around in the Yamanaka Flower Shop.

Sakura almost made a joke about this being the only cloud Shikamaru wouldn't watch...

But then she thought of him still MIA.

Just like Neji.

And Hinata.

She kept her mouth shut.

"Hey, Sakura!"

No jokes about her forehead or how she had gained weight.

She didn't know how she would react if the girl had made any references to her old nicknames.

"Hey... Ino," Sakura didn't waste any time on small talk, even though a very short month ago she would've perched herself comfortably on the check-out counter, chatting for 10 minutes before even remembering what flowers she wanted, "I'd like a cluster of white Yarrow flowers."

"Coming right up!"

Ino zipped about the room, as limber as ever as she hopped up on ladders to get nice ribbons and zoomed across the floor to pick out the most perfect looking yarrows you ever saw.

Sakura joked bitterly to herself that it was probably because Ino was, and always would be, the perfect flower.

Kakashi eyed Sakura's uneasiness in watching Ino prep the arrangement of pretty white blossoms for Lee. The pinkette's small hand came up to rest on her portruding stomach, and her legs shifted relentlessly in her mental comparisons to Ino.

His showing eyebrow could be seen narrowing a bit at her self conscious actions.

It made sense, however irritating, after their talk a few days ago.

/

"I can't have this baby."

Sakura stated it matter-of-factly, reading it straight from the imaginary textbook titled "The Ins & Outs of Haruno Sakura". It wasn't as if she was telling him about her sudden inability to give birth to and care for a child, Sasuke's child, at all.

His eye turned to her from the rustling leaves on the tree surrounding the apartment complex.

Sure, Sakura cried and threw up and complained about her weight gain sometimes and was moody almost every other day, but she never gave any indication that she was having any second thoughts about giving birth to the Uchiha spawn she was currently housing.

"I'm not ready. There's so much I want to do. I want to head the hospital before I turn 25, travel all over the world just healing people and gaining experience in the field for a few years before I even do the hospital thing. I want to be a field medic in ANBU for a bit. And I don't...I don't want to be held down by a child who won't receive my full attention because I'll be out trying to live my life. Plus, the kid would be an _Uchiha_!"

"Does that change things?"

Derisive snort. "Of course it does. It'd be the start of the Uchiha Clan, once again. The first born. The son. Secret techniques. Jutsu of passage. So on and so forth."

"You won't be alone doing it, you know."

Kakashi's drawl cut through the air that wasn't exactly as tense as it should've been for the topic they were discussing.

He had the Sharingan.

He was a qualified teacher.

At times.

She didn't bother looking at him as she tossed the metaphorical elephant in the room into the air.

"Yeah, but my child won't have a father. A real one."

Her eyes drifted to the strawberry vendor closing up his cart early, dismayed at the thought of customers sneering at his spoiled batch today.

"Sasuke is going to stay the way he is now: A happy-go-lucky, clueless idiot in love with the most perfect girl any guy could ask for. Eventually, he'll dump her and wander aimlessly, find some new friends, and live his life to the fullest—like he should've from the start. No memories of Team Seven. No memories of you, or me, or even Naruto."

And for the first time ever, Kakashi listened to her map of Sasuke's life and laughed. Right in her face.

"Sasuke isn't clueless. He knows you're pregnant because of him. Or something along those lines."

"Wh-wha... What?"

"Yeah. He heard you and I arguing, especially that lovely part about how you're carrying his child."

Sakura sat there, shell shocked.

Sasuke...

_Knew_?

"Besides, he doesn't love Ino. Nor will he make any new friends."

Sakura turned on her side, directing her gaze from the commotion below to the lone-eyed man beside her.

"How do you know that?"

"They've made out nonstop," Sakura cringed at this, "Gone on a real date twice and people don't have two soulmates. You're his soulmate, not Ino, case closed."

Sakura gaped at her former sensei.

"He'll never find new friends because it's still in his inherent reflexes and nature to scare people off. The only reason he's with Ino now is because of you."

Sakura's face sobered up as she digested the words Kakashi was feeding to her. Her mouth closed into a line and her eyebrows seized their narrowing.

"How do you know all that?"

"I've been watching him. And the reason I was looking for you was to ask you if you knew anything you had decided not to inform Tsunade about. Details on Sasuke."

She flinched like he struck her, but he couldn't find it in him to be sympathetic any more than he already was to her current plight.

Her shoulder smoothed back down to its normal place on her perfectly postured upper torso. Sakura was too smart to not know that herself.

She knew she didn't have a right to feel offense.

"I'm not thinking of changing my mind about this baby because of Sasuke and Ino. Sure, I'm not happy about it, but they look happy together. It's all I can ask for."

And then Kakashi understood.

It wasn't about Ino.

Or Sasuke.

Or being left alone to raise a child she wasn't sure she could look at everyday.

Sakura was just not ready. She was obviously downplaying her anger at Sasuke and Ino's minor relationship, but not as much as another would think—as Naruto would probably think. Overtime, the feeling might change, but for now she seemed steadfast in her decision.

"Tomorrow we can go and talk to Tsunade about it, if you want."

Sakura laid back on the beach chair and it creaked under her delicate weight.

Her face was smooth of emotion, just the kind of analyzing lip biting that signaled a line of thought.

"I'd like that."

She nodded to herself, as if he wasn't even there.

"I guess its for the best."

The mixture of sunlight and tall, filtering leaves made the arch of her eyebrow more pronounced.

"Naruto would be all over the kid like white on rice and I'd have to step in and be a proper uncle and teach it stuff. You know how much I suck at that, but then I'd have to try."

An unladylike snort left Sakura and it made him chuckle. How did she manage to make men fall in love with her when she was so..._unladylike_?

The question made him want to roll his eye.

He already knew why.

Her lack of "femininty" wasn't something to mourn over.

"Kakashi... About what I said—"

"I'm not ready to talk about this."

Sakura's head whipped around to look at him.

"I know what you're going to say. But I can't hear it right now."

When her lower lip started to tremble, his hand flew to rub her back in soothing circles.

He couldn't blame Sakura for wanting to cry. She was really, only, barely a girl. Just a girl forced to grow up too fast. It didn't excuse her from hurting him or making mistakes, but it did excuse her from dealing with it all herself, and in the times that there was no one else or a whole army behind her, he would be there.

It was the least he could do for all the times he had deserted her. Humans weren't nearly evolved enough to ever truly forget the wrongs done unto them; they were even less inclined to forget the wrongs they had done unto others.

Her face came to bury into his newly dried jounin vest.

"Thank you."

But Sakura already understood that.

She had always been a smart girl.

/

Kakashi threw much more money than needed on the counter, telling Ino to keep the change and steered Sakura out of the shop while Naruto took the flowers.

He hadn't expected for the pink haired girl to side step his grasp and go to the statuesque beauty who had gone back to spraying the delicate flowers around the shop with a green bottle full of water.

The two exchanged words while he stood outside with Naruto, who was too confused to say anything.

An unimaginable feat for him.

Soon enough, Sakura was back outside, leading the way towards the sterile building a few blocks away.

"I told Ino to come over to Sasuke's for his party."

And throughout all his questioning looks and Naruto's questioning exclamations, she never bothered to explain herself.

She only took them by the elbows, linked them together and dragged them through the doors of the hospital.

* * *

They say that it's hard to live through your entire life and then find out it was all a lie.

Sasuke couldn't relate.

From the very start, waking up in a forest of green, not knowing who he was, he was constantly reminded he was living a life that bore no semblance to what it used to be by either himself or the others he'd met along the road.

By Naruto: a guy he tried to kill within the first few minutes of meeting him; a person he couldn't help but find so unbearably annoying that he developed an untraceable itch on the inside of his skull whenever he was in the vicinity; someone pure at heart that managed to stay that way even after almost squeezing the life out of him.

By Kakashi: another guy he tried to kill within minutes of meeting; an extremely aloof individual with an air of mystery; someone who he couldn't help but feel some sort of connection to, one way or another, even after his comments that signaled he wanted nothing less than to be connected with Sasuke.

And by Sakura: a girl he'd let fall to the ground before even getting a good look at her face; an embodiment of everything he felt he could never get back/at all; someone who put a warm feeling over him whenever she was near.

He didn't know how cold he was until he stopped seeing Sakura around.

Kissing Ino set fire to the most primal parts of him. She was extremely attractive and had the air of a lamb around her. He wanted to protect her and lay with her.

But Ino didn't make him feel any warmer in spirit, in a place above his lower torso.

She didn't make him feel any better as a person with no idea of who they were in a fucked up world where people lost their memory.

She didn't make him want to compensate for wrongs he couldn't even remember committing.

Ino made him feel stronger, faster, smarter...bigger than what he was.

Thinking of all the times he'd sat on Sakura's couch and ate meals with her and just talked—something he now felt was a waste of lips with Ino—he couldn't recall feeling anything more or less than just human.

With Ino, he had tried to start over. Her changed attitude from brazenly loud to softspokenly relatable drew him in. Sakura's insistence that he spent time with her only added fuel to the fire. When she confessed she hoped they were lovers in a time before they both lost their memory, he had blurted out he felt the same way before thinking. When she kissed him, it was heated, but soft.

It felt right.

At the time.

Then, he found it.

A cardboard box filled with mementos from a life he didn't know. A cardboard box filled with pictures of her and him and cards from them all. A thick, leather bound book with a note in the first blank page, neat handwriting spelling out "For when you need to get away". He dug further and his hands brushed something velvet, but a card caught his attention.

He could only barely call it luck that he knocked over his bedside alarm and bent beside his bed to get it, catching a glimpse at the hidden box under his bed.

And soon enough, he was reading sloppy handwriting that told of a birthday and countless memories that came before that.

Naruto spoke of so many things that he started to see them in his head.

Four stools at a stand, each occupied by separate figures that melded together to make an artist's palette.

A red bridge under a sky still half covered in stars, mixing with lavender and indigo and gold and scarlet.

Arguments about such insignificant things that he almost scoffed at them now.

Battles with blood.

A lot of blood.

Then, the card ended with a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" he could almost hear being yelled at him.

He pressed the two pieces of paper he pulled out of the box to his chest, feeling what they held, rather than seeing them.

Two people in formal wear.

A jumbled mesh of words.

Sasuke closed his eyes and breathed out, trying to salvage the little bit of sanity he still had.

Fists felt like they were pounding on the side of skull and he groggily trudged to the bathroom for some aspirin.

He wasn't sure if he was ready to remember.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to.

* * *

My updating is on a freaking roll, but don't expect something for at least a week.

I need to recuperate.

Help me with reviews and favoriting, lads and lassies!

xx mm.


	17. Box

**A/N:** This is what listening to "Love Love Love" from Monsters and Men and "Lover of the Light" from Mumford and Sons will get you.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XVII

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Note: **This chapter escalates quickly.

* * *

One is company.

Two is a crowd.

And three is a party.

Or so they say.

Then what was seven other people in his house?

An extravaganza? A festival?

"I SEE YOU WINDIN' AND GRINDIN', UP ON THAT FLOOR. I KNOW YOU SEE ME LOOKIN' AT YOU AND YOU ALREADY KNOW, I WANNA LOVE YOU!"

Naruto's words were slurred and as imbalanced as he and his dance partner's footsteps.

The word "annoying" balanced precariously on his lips as he listened to Naruto's mangled version of English, but he swallowed the adjective back down with a sip of sake.

The knocking on his skull turned out to be knocking on his door, with the perpetrators being the same people he'd just been thinking about. Looking at them in his doorway, infinitely pleased that they surprised him, he felt even more foreign than before.

Naruto waved with spread out fingers and rubbed the back of his neck, shouting a "SURPRISE!" in his face before letting himself in. Kakashi followed, carrying trays of what smelled like dinner and cake. Sakura stayed in his doorway.

She was carrying a bouquet of shiny navy blue balloons that floated well above her head, looking like they would carry her off by the small fist she held onto them with. She wore her hair out and Sasuke could tell she straightened it, instead of just hopping out of the shower and letting it air dry.

The red dress she wore came in at the waist and then flowed out. It looked like some kind of sheer material with too many layers to count. Her small feet were adorned in tiny silver sandals.

He noticed the difference in her figure right away.

She looked adorable, but it did nothing to hide the bump of her stomach that the dress did all it could to accommodate.

"_I'M CARRYING SASUKE'S CHILD AND YOU DIDN'T HAVE_ _THE DECENCY TO GET OVER BEING A FUCKING COWARD TO TELL ME HE HAD NO IDEA WHO I AM!"  
_  
He frowned almost imperceptibly.

She caught it anyway and the fist holding the balloons was mimicked by her other hand. Her shoulders came up a bit and her silky hair fell around them.

"I know this is kind of sudden, but we always celebrate your birthday and I couldn't let the tradition go. You only turn 19 once."

Her lips barely quirked to form a sad smile. She thought that he was bothered by her presence.

As if that could be possible.

In the past couple of days, hours, and minutes, he had thought about her more than could be deemed healthy.

Sasuke could hear the yells of Naruto as he talked about how good the food smelled and how he couldn't wait to dig in. He could heard Kakashi's calm baritone say that he would have to wait a little longer.

They almost drowned out Sakura's quiet voice from where they both stood outside on the raised entrance to his home, unable to see the sky with the overhead roof the encircled the property. Their nervous breaths went unheard because of the chiming melody played by the wind.

The breezy night made Sakura shiver and then he remembered that they were still outside and that she thought he didn't want them here.

He cleared his throat and put a hand on her shoulder, leading her inside.

That started the madness that was going on now.

A half hour later, Ino knocked on his door, carrying a fruit arrangement that, looking over to the coffee table now, was half devoured by guests too full from all the food Sakura made. The outfit she wore —a lavender, strapless something and black heels that looked painful—made him draw comparisons to Sakura while the two exchanged an awkward hug. She brought three people with her: A girl with twin buns in her hair that was singing along to a song he didn't know (or want to know) with a tipsy Naruto, a chubby boy with swirls on his cheeks that was still eating, and an introvert with a high collared jacket and sunglasses, even while in the dimmed lighting of the Uchiha Manor.

Ino was sitting beside him on the sofa, cheeks burning from all the sake she had, giggling like a maniac. Sakura was sitting in a leather arm chair in front of the introvert—was his name Shino?—who perched himself on the coffee table, speaking to the guy about something Naruto would probably deem boring.

After the awkward silence on the porch, he only dared sneak glances at her when he knew she wasn't looking.

She smiled and danced with Kakashi and Naruto, sang Happy Birthday to him before he blew out his candles, and handed him his only present of the evening.

It was from her.

Not Naruto, Kakashi and Sakura.

Just Sakura.

The gesture made the back of his neck turn red, and he thanked her. Ignoring the slight twitch in her smile at his small words of gratitude, he placed the rectangular, simply wrapped box with a small silver bow on his bed. She walked away without a request for him to open it in front of her.

A hand trailed up his thigh and he stood up.

It was Ino.

She was hot—in both the literal and colloquial sense of the word.

She had her hands on him more often than not throughout the party. They had already shared many touches in their relatively new relationship. He had kissed her in many places besides her lips, but she always stopped him at the last minute.

She wanted her first time—the one she knew about, anyway—to be special.

Sasuke didn't understand why he was so glad she always stopped them from having sex. Maybe it was because he felt he wasn't ready or because he knew there was something wrong when he looked at Ino—breathing heavily, face flushed, chest raising up and down beneath him, barely protesting to the skilled movements of his hands that seemingly moved on their own with the memories of an accomplished lover.

She was incredibly attractive; that was for sure. And she liked him.

Yet, he didn't feel as amazing lucky to have her as he should've.

Feeling guilty from his thoughts while placing a kiss on Ino's flushed face, Sasuke took another glass of sake and departed, setting out for the roof, brushing off her grabby hands and calls.

Her face was as heated as it looked; his lips and cheeks tingled when they met the fresh air from the contrast.

Or maybe that was just his face. He felt light and heavy at the same time. Maybe he'd had too much to drink. His back hit the decorative tiles of the roof and for a split second he saw red. The Uchiha blinked once, twice, three times, and then he saw Kakashi standing over him.

"Tired already?"

The drawl from Kakashi sounded much lazier than the tone he heard in the hospital, and a lot more relaxed than the voice that told Naruto he had to wait to eat.

The gray haired man sat beside him and whipped out his little orange book.

Sasuke sat up quicker than he should've and felt vertigo threaten to push him back down.

How did he get on the roof? Did he climb up here?

Surely he was too out of it to summon chakra to his feet.

The only thing clear in the world was Kakashi, who was looking back at him, as relaxed as ever.

"Just relax, Sasuke."

His deep voice lulled him to sleep and before Sasuke knew it, black spots danced in his vision and he knew nothing else but Kakashi's words that strung together to sound like the sweetest lullaby and the numb feeling taking over his body.

/

Sasuke woke up with a start. He was in his room, in his bed sucking up the oxygen in the air as if his lungs would soon quit on him.

A glance at the open window told him it was four in the morning.  
The sun would rise in less than an hour.

Carefully stretching his body, he groaned at the cracking and shifting of his joints. The early morning breeze felt good on his skin and he thanked whoever opened up the window for him.

It was then that he noticed he wasn't alone.

He sprinted out of his room, and the smell of freshly made green tea awakened his senses.

"Ohayo, Sasuke-kun."

Sakura stood behind the stove, flicking the fire off with a quick movement of the wrist, as comfortable as ever in a kitchen that he still felt like an intruder in.

He stood there, at the entrance of the kitchen, lips slightly parted and looking absolutely dumbfounded.

His home was clean. And not just clean, as in picked up. But _clean—_as in someone stayed up all night just to scrub the old, traditional wooden floors and counters in his home with the utmost care.

Sakura hummed as she moved to the low table on the other side of the kitchen. She was wearing one of his shirts. The hem came to her mid thigh and accommodated her like a dress.

She sat down gracefully, legs tucked under her, and gestured for him to sit in front of her.

He couldn't.

He was too busy looking at the sight of Ino, breathing lightly on his couch, momentarily oblivious to the massive pain she'd be in once she decided to wake up.

"I left Ino on the couch. She passed out after everyone left and Kakashi and I were so busy cleaning this place up, that we didn't have the energy to bring her home."

"...Kakashi?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him, holding in a laugh.

"Yeah. Kakashi. You fell asleep on the roof and he brought you down here. Unless you wanted to wake up to crows on your head."

With one last look at Ino, Sasuke dragged his heavy feet to the table and sat down carefully.

The green tea she made was bitter.

He decided he liked it that way.

Sasuke eyed the way the cotton neckline shifted off one of her shoulders.

Sakura's shoulders hunched up and she grasped her mug of tea a bit tighter.

"I hope you don't mind... I borrowed a shirt. Naruto kind of threw up all over my dress and even though I got out the stain, I still want to give it a good wash before putting it back on."

Silence continued and Sasuke couldn't ever remember a time when he'd felt strange around Sakura more than this moment. Outside on the porch last night could maybe count, but this new unease around her was strange.

He didn't like it.

Sakura was the first person he'd felt safe around after being dragged to Konoha, a place he couldn't remember.

Sakura was the first to bring him into her home, make him feel comfortable.

Sakura was the first person that made him feel cared for.

Ino hadn't made him feel any of those things. At least... Not to a recognizable extent.

"That's okay."

Sakura smiled and continue to sip her tea contentedly, as if it was her place, as if it was the normal. When she finished. She placed her cup down gently, and traced the rim where her lips were. Biting her lip and fiddling with the ends of her hair, she looked impossibly nervous. He felt the need to reassure her.

"...Sakura."

"Yes, Sasuke-kun?"

"Thank you."

"...You're always welcome, Sasuke-kun."

But it didn't stop her fidgeting, leaving him to wonder what was on her mind.

* * *

"You told me you needed my help."

"Kakashi, when I told you to stay close to Uchiha, I didn't mean to use your damn Sharingan on him!"

A fist slammed onto the dark, sturdy oak of the Sannin's desk and small particles of dust could be seen in the slivers of light coming from the windows behind her.

It was too early for anyone to be this aggravated.

Except Konoha's Fifth Hokage.

Kakashi maneuvered behind her and dropped the blinds on all of the half wall windows, then dropped back in the chair in front of her desk.

She'd never admit it, but it did wonders for her headache.

"You wanted me to investigate and I did. I saw a few things that you might be interested in hearing about."

Tsunade straightened in her chair and put the notes Kakashi took into the troubled Uchiha's file.

"Sasuke has gaps in his memory."

The Godaime snorted.

"Oh course he does. Remember what Inoichi said. The boy's mind is so dark you can't see a thing."

Kakashi leaned forward in the chair he was sitting in, placing his elbows on top of Tsunade's desk roughly to make a collective thump noise.

If the Hokage was a lesser ninja, she would've flinched at the Copy Nin's display of impatience. But she was not. Therefore, the buxom blonde enjoyed the sign of aggravation in the eternally complacent shinobi.

"Sasuke has been back in Konoha for almost two months. He's developed a few memories and thoughts that have already imbedded themselves in the deepest part of his subconscious."

The nod Kakashi got was a sign for him to continue as Tsunade grew more intrigued and the dreaded feeling in her stomach grew worse.

"When I used my Sharingan to read through his subconscious, there were hours, random hours with no particular pattern, where there was a block of some sort that I couldn't maneuver out of the way. Sasuke's memories are unavailable in strategic places."

"Kakashi..."

"He's being controlled by someone. And not just that, but he's slowly weaning off of that person's control. I saw a few things in his memory that could not have happened after his return..."

Tsunade had already suspected the Uchiha to be under the control of someone else, but there was never substantial evidence to hold up the theory. This could be the proof she needed...

"Like?"

"He knows that he and Naruto almost fought to the death. He may not realize that is what his memory entails, but it's in him. He found a few old things that were supposed to hide in a box in the attic...but the box ended up under his bed. And he found it."

A long breath left her lungs.

"What do you suppose we do?"

Kakashi rubbed his chin in thought. It wasn't as if he hadn't gone through plans in the case that Sasuke was being controlled by someone else, like a puppet, but nothing had ever come to mind. If the gaps in his mind were at random intervals, then he needed to be under constant surveillance.

"Sasuke needs to be under a 24/7 watch. Even when he's sleeping. We can't miss an hour."

"Have Naruto do it."

His lone eye widened.

"Do you really think that's such a good idea?"

"If he has memories with Naruto, then spending time with him should help loosen up the barriers once the memories become a little clearer. Naruto will move in with him. And I need you to do one more thing. It's about—"

Kakashi slouched in the chair, his back cracking awkwardly as Tsunade gave him instructions on the interview he was supposed to conduct with Lee later that day.

This could not end well.

* * *

Ino still hadn't woken up by six, and Sasuke was dragged to his room.

Sakura was happy he hadn't opened his present yet.

He felt the navy blue wrapping paper and the silver bow. Both were smooth under his calloused finger tips. Sakura urged him to open the box.

Her delicate shoulder pushed his and she gave him a playful smile that looked forced and pained. Sasuke looked down at her from the slight height advantage he had while they sat on his bed together. Sakura leaned against his wooden bed frame, looking as stiff as she could be.

With one last look at her, he took the top of the box off, taking care not to rip the ribbon. Lifting the delicate flaps of white tissue, a book lay within. It was a simple journal—black leather cover with an extended wrap to tie it closed.

He untied the leather knot and opened the book.

The pages were pleasantly thick and looked to be handmade from pressing leaves. Flipping through the book with the utmost care, he found different mementos. There were red, pressed flowers on many of the pages, taped in tickets that looked to be from festivals, and letters that were addressed to him. He looked up at Sakura with questioning eyes to see her with tears in the corners of her eyes and a hard pressed mouth to keep her sobs in.

"Sakura?"

Wordlessly, she reached over for the book and flipped to the inside of the front cover. There was a picture taped carefully to it. Looking at it now, it seemed familiar.

The two of them in formal wear. Sakura's smile was dazzling and the picture caught a soft smirk on his face. She wore a red kimono that cinched at her small waist with a light pink obi. The emerald ornaments in her hair probably tinkled lightly as she turned her head this way and that, captivated by all the festival lights. He wore a plain black formal yukata with the Uchiha fan appearing once on either side of the neckline. They were the direct antitheses of each other—dark and light, delicate and rugged, Sasuke and Sakura. He could see the festival playing in his mind.

Fixing her hair in the mirror.

The lights turning her hair all sorts of colors.

The photographer.

"What a beautiful couple."

Sakura said the words of the photographer softly. His eyes snapped to her and her flushed cheeks, her button nose, Cupid's bow lips, wide forehead and big, bright, beaming eyes that glistened with the shine of her unshed tears. Her delicate throat swallowed a lump and she took his hands in hers, caressing the knuckles in a way that felt so familiar but it was so strange and far away and everything about her was painful to look at. She was so clean and lovely and he was too lost and gone and had done so much wrong. In the back of his mind, he felt this amazing creature with the name sake of the samurai's blossom could not and should not be stuck with someone as dirty and tainted and disgusting as him. Self loathing filled his throat and stomach and mouth like bile and he so desperately wanted to vomit but he didn't want to give her another reason to be disgusted with him. Sasuke couldn't understand where these feelings were coming from. The self loathing and deprecation felt familiar but he couldn't remember what he'd done to deserve it. He couldn't remember what he did to not deserve her.

"Sasuke-kun, Sasuke-kun... Look at me."

Slowly, he picked his head up to change the view from the floor—how did he stop looking at her? How could he stand to look away?—to her face.

Sakura was still sitting on his bed, legs crossed. But she no longer looked forcibly calm. In fact, she looked as sick as he and so lost that all he wanted to do was hold her, but some force—a demonic, evil, rotten power—held him back.

She licked her lips and swallowed again, trying to stop the sobs threatening to come up.

"Sasuke-kun, I know that you don't remember me or anything we used to have, but I do. I remember everything. I remember waking up in the morning with you there, kissing you before you went on your missions, making you lunch while you trained, patching you up when you went too far and being happy that everyone in Konoha knew you were mine. I know you can't love me now and I don't known if you ever did but I've tried to stop loving you and let you be happy," Sakura started to sob and her words mixed with hiccups, "with Ino."

Sasuke sat there stunned, watching her call out to him in the most desperate possible way.

He could say nothing.

"And I know you're probably very happy with her but the reason I did all of this isn't because it's your birthday tradition or because I wanted to get all of us together. It was because I'm selfish and I wanted to give you this book, with the hopes that you might remember how you used to feel about me! You gave me each of those flowers, Sasuke and I can't ever forget that we used to have a chance to spend the rest of our lives together! I know fate decided to split us apart and I know what I'm saying doesn't make any sense but I still can't shake the feeling that we belong together!" Sakura was yelling and grasping onto his hands and crying and sobbing,"I love you, Sasuke! And I'm dying without you!"

By the end of her declaration, Sakura ripped her hands from his and covered her face to sob loudly.

He pulled her into his chest and she cried loudly into his shirt. He could feel the tears joining with the cotton and the heat emanating from her flushed face.

It was the only thing he didn't feel too helpless to do.

Sakura cried until Ino stopped feigning sleep.

Sakura cried while Ino got her things silently and left.

Sakura cried until she stopped crying.

Then, Sasuke, more afraid than he could ever remember feeling, sat her up in his lap, wiped the last of her tears, and kissed her.

* * *

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

**Moonwaterpetal** —You were my 100th reviewer and therefore freaking amazing! Thank you for reading. :)

**Silentworld11** —Your enthusiastic review encouraged me to put this up at 4 am on a Friday. Thank you for reading as well!

**Masashi** **Kishimoto** —BECAUSE OMFG, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN CHAPTER 627 HIT ME RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FEELS.

Possible lemon in the next chapter.

Depends on how sadistic I feel.

Review!

xx mm.


	18. Gone

**A/N:** The real thing we should focus on here is that I have a tendency to update at ridiculous times of morning/night. I should consult a doctor.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XVIII

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku (no matter how much it doesn't seem so) & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Note: **No lemon guys, but I do have one planned in the future. Or maybe two. Also, this is where shit hits the fan for real.

* * *

He didn't know how they ended up this way. In this position. On his bed, no less.

Sakura breathed raggedly beneath him. Her mouth was swollen and pink and pained-looking. She looked like she had been outside in the dead of winter, licking her lips unrelentingly to try and give them some moisture, knowing very well that it only made them drier.

His shirt on her was so wrong and right. The sleeve on her right shoulder had fallen so far he could swear he almost saw the outside pinkness of her areola. The hem had hiked up in their heated kissing and was dangerously high on her hips, just barely covering the panties she wore underneath.

A fair hand pulled him down and a greedy mouth sucked on his bottom lip, making the systems of his body go haywire.

His breathing was just as hard. The deprivation of oxygen his lungs had just endured and the torrent of emotions coursing through his veins were detrimental to his physical and mental health. His heart was beating faster. His head was crazed with thoughts of her in this position, with those lips, in different places, in other times than the one he was currently in.

His hands were roaming her body with minds of their own because he didn't have the awareness to control them.

She was moaning his name with an eagerness that he knew he should've been silencing her sounds with his tongue and then making her shouts louder with other parts of him.

But the blood coursing through his veins was at godspeed with the erratic beating of his heart.

He was losing consciousness. And fast. He knew it. He could feel his vision of the world slipping.

Not into black, but red.

He couldn't see. What was _wrong_ with him? _What_ was he doing? _Why couldn't_ _he see_?

His thoughts scrambled before erasing completely and he fell into a vat of stillness.

The last one was why Sakura had started screaming so loudly.

The control over his body was gone.

* * *

"You want me to _what_?"

"You're moving in with Sasuke."

Naruto looked back and forth between his former sensei and the Hokage eyeing him from behind her desk.

"Baa-chan! You can't be serious!"

"Naruto," Tsunade decided to let the nickname slip just this once in favor of more important matters,"Yes, I am serious. Sasuke needs to be watched and you happen to be very crucial to former memories that we need to evoke within him. It's the best for everyone and you will do it."

Naruto sunk further into his chair beside Kakashi. It wasn't that he didn't see their point of reason. He understood Sasuke needed to be watched and that he was the best choice to watch him.

That didn't mean he had to like it.

Besides, he still had a hangover from yesterday and he was feeling a bit bratty.

Naruto fiddled with a stray thread on the hem of his orange shirt.

"Naruto, this is about Sakura's safety."

At this, he perked up. What made Sakura more significant than the rest of them in this case?

"What are you talking about, Kakashi?"

Judging from Tsunade's squinted eyes and demanding voice, she didn't have a single clue what Kakashi was going on about either.

What was going on around here?

"Sasuke has a lot of information on Sakura. They've gotten very close since his return. If Sasuke is being controlled by an enemy, do you think they'll pass up the chance to get their hands on the first newborn of the Uchiha?"

The thought of someone targeting Sakura made him forget to breathe. The notion of her being hurt—or _worse_, but he couldn't think of that quite yet—by anyone because she was pregnant was too much to handle. He had to protect her. He had to protect Sakura because if someone got to Sakura, he didn't know what he'd do. All he knew was if it were to happen, that would be it for him—whatever it was.

It would also be the end of Kakashi.

And Sasuke.

And many others.

But mostly him. You could say he was very narrow minded in scenarios that involved her. You could also say he was very selfish.

He wouldn't fight you on either point.

If something were to happen to Sakura, it would be the end of Konoha for him. He wouldn't be able to walk the streets without imagining her looking at flowers at the Yamanaka's, shopping for strawberries along the market, or sitting in Ichiraku Ramen for _dumplings_, of all things.

"I'll move in today."

Tsunade nodded and wrote a few notes in one of her files.

Kakashi looked at the clock above Tsunade's hunched over head. It read ten to three.

"According to my notes, Sasuke should be with Ino around this time. Find him and make up some excuse for moving in with him."

Naruto nodded and took his leave in silence.

/

They weren't at Ino's house. The girl's mother was worried sick, since her daughter hadn't come home last night. Naruto had to sit through a cup of tea with a frazzled brunette that kept asking for him to "please, tell Ino to come home as soon as possible".

He barely got out of there without her telling him to straighten his shirt or comb his hair or button the pockets on his khaki shorts if he wasn't going to use them at least a _gagillion_ times.

_Sheesh_, what a priss.

They hadn't gotten lunch in that barbecue place she always brought him too and they hadn't stopped by the flower shop. They weren't at the park. Sasuke wasn't pushing her on the swing set as the rambunctious ninja had seen him do days ago. Naruto had tried to stop and talk to them, but it was too awkward.

They were in their "couple zone", as he liked to call it.

Now he walked along the hillside overlooking Konoha. Choji was usually here around the upper middle of the hills, cloud gazing for an absent Shikamaru. It was sad how their team just didn't work without him. And Choji happened to be an emotional eater. He'd never seen so many chip bags on the floor of anyone's bedroom until visiting Choji at the Akimichi home two weeks ago. If he wasn't there, he was at this hillside and even though Ino lost her memory, they were still teammates. Maybe he would know where she was and hopefully she would be attached to Sasuke's hip, as per the usual.

Naruto chose to ignore the voice in his head that said it was a shame he didn't know where Sasuke was.

_They were still teammates_, after all.

Reaching Shikamaru's frequent spot amongst the trees (he liked the shade to nap under), Naruto spotted two figures.

The telltale blonde hair flowing in the breeze gave the one he was looking for—by extension—away.

"Hey! Ino!"

She turned to look at him as he approached and Naruto cringed.

The girl's eyes were a scorching bloodshot pink. Her nose looked like she'd been rubbing it on a rug and so did her cheeks.

"What's wrong?"

Ino looked at him for a few moments and her lip quivered while her nostrils flared. She was trying not to cry.

"Uh, Naruto... Now's not the best—", Choji started.

But Ino's wails stopped him mid sentence and he continued to rub her back and hand her facial tissues from a box that lay almost empty on the ground.

Her crying eventually ceased, but all she did in exchange for that was give him a glare that made him feel even more uncomfortable than he already was in her presence.

"I-It's your fault! You should've kept a better eye on Sakura! I thought I was f-friends with her... I c-cant believe she would do this to me!"

The troubled girl sniffled and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

"Ino... What's going on?"

The blonde turned her face to the trees, denying him of any attention.

Choji sighed.

"Ino saw... Sasuke and Sakura together. On his bed."

Naruto froze momentarily, but examined the scene in his head from all angles.

"So?"

Choji looked at him as if he was vastly devoid of intelligence.

"Ino, nothing probably happened," Naruto tried his best to make sense of the situation while being mildly supportive of her dilemma.

But mostly he was just trying to get what the big deal was.

It was just Sasuke and Sakura on Sasuke's bed. They were all just really close that way. He and Kakashi lay down with Sakura on her bed all the time, and—

Oh _fuck_.

"—And you should've heard all the things she said to him! And then she started crying and he held her. Sasuke _held_ her. I was just glad to get out of there..."

Ino talked of the massive betrayal by the boy she had come to practically love and the girl who had been so kind to her. How was she supposed to know such a devious, manipulative villain hid under the facade of a swollen belly and a pretty smile?

But Naruto had stopped listening to her words.

Without any goodbye, Naruto ran back towards Konoha, leaving dirt in his wake as he pushed himself to the Uchiha District, the pounding headache from the previous night's activities not deterring him in the slightest. He didn't stop when he got on the paved walkways of the long deceased Uchiha and hopped the gate of Sasuke's house.

He tried to pry open the front door, but it was locked.

This only further fueled the dreaded taste in his mouth and his fury.

An orange clad shoulder came to bust the old door down.

Naruto didn't stop to observe the empty mugs on the table in the kitchen or a stray shoe that Ino had left behind in her haste to leave.

Naruto didn't stop until he reached Sasuke's bedroom.

The door was wide open.

There was a leather book on the floor, the sheets were askew and he could see strands of Sakura's hair that had been left behind. The window was wide open and a kunai embedded in the door leading to Sasuke's personal bathroom.

The team seven picture was on the floor face down in a broken frame.

Naruto could only imagine that Sakura had tried to use it as a weapon, smashing it on Sasuke's head in defense.

It would also explain the glass on the bed and the little droplets of blood.

Naruto's body collapsed on itself. His knees gave out and his spine was tired of supporting him.

He knew he had to get back to the general village and find Kakashi or Tsunade or _anyone_ and tell them what happened. Tell them that Sakura _fucking_ Haruno had been taken from the village.

By _Sasuke Uchiha_.

But Naruto Uzumaki rolled into a ball and wept angry, sad tears for the light that had just disappeared from his life.

* * *

It should've smelled of blood and rot and someone suffering from necrosis. It should've been dark and moist and there should've been the faint _dripdrip_ of water slowly sending her into an inescapable madness. There should've been chakra links on her arms and waist and ankles, sucking the life out of her. There shouldn't be a fresh hospital gown on her or a blanket that was still warm, as if it just came out of the incubator. The smell of soap shouldn't still lingering on her skin. She shouldn't be this clean.

When one is abducted, the conditions of their imprisonment shouldn't be this sterile.

Sakura hadn't opened her eyes yet.

She couldn't.

But she didn't have to.

There was a mask on her face that brought the air to her. There were multiple wires attached to her chest, temples, and arms, monitoring her heart rate and brain activity, judging from the beeping of machines in the background. An IV was in the inside of her right elbow, feeding who-knows-what into her veins.

Everything hurt.

It hurt_ so much_.

The inside of her eyelids were red; there was light in the room she was in.

Her body could feel the cotton of the gown and the blanket on her skin. The painful shifting of her thighs told her she wasn't wearing anything else. Her bindings and undergarments were gone. She could only feel gauze wrapped around her left forearm reminding her of the moments before she passed out from the sedative stabbed into her.

She could still remember when Sasuke had shoved the needle so roughly into her arm, covering her mouth with his hand to muffle her dissenting cries.

The thought now made her want to sob, but she was too sore for crying. And too empty.

Mustering up the only strength she had, Sakura blinked twice and looked around her.

The first thing she noticed was that the walls were made of glass.

Clean, transparent glass devoid of fingerprints or huffs of warm breath.

There was a door that seemingly blended in with the rest of the wall and a seal on it that indicated there was more to the glass structure than the eye could see.

Especially more than her eyes could see; she could make out nothing beyond the glass. There was a curtain on the outside of the walls.

Everything was so... _clean_. And white. The floor was tiled with a white glass brick pattern. Her sheets were white. Her gown was white. The small drawers on wheels along the wall and her bed frame were made of a white metal.

Her eyelids snapped closed. The minimal strength she'd amassed a few moments ago was gone and the pristine condition of the place she was in had hurt her eyes.

The sound of hooks moving against a rod made her heart pound faster. Someone was drawing the curtain. Someone was going to enter the room she was completely defenseless in.

Footsteps neared her bed and her muscles would've tensed if they could.

Rummaging happened for a few moments and she could slowly feel the strength come back to her, little by little. The wires were peeled off her skin gently.

"You can stop pretending, sweet blossom."

Her eyes snapped open and bore into twin onyx eyes. A welcoming smile that still held all the sadistic qualities she knew very well he possessed was aimed at her. Sakura offhandedly remembered a time when she had been thankful for that smile.

But no longer.

Sakura struggled to move her limbs with the energy she felt coming back to her. It was no use. She was still paralyzed.

Somewhere in the background, the beeping of the heart monitor grew faster.

* * *

Sooo... Some fucked up shit is happening.

Give me your thoughts!

Thanks for reading.

xx mm.


	19. Remembering

**A/N:** I'M BACK! Wooo! AP Exams are over and now all I have to do is spank my NY Regents. Don't worry though guys. I'm going to be doing a lot of writing. This chapter is a little longer than I usually put out because it's mostly transition and flashbacks, but the next chapter will have the plot moving a bit more. I want to have this thing done so I can get started a few other ideas I have. Anyway, enjoy!

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XIX

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

At about three months, the development of the child in the womb has allowed for the makings of unique fingerprints. At 16 weeks, the growing of nails on tiny toes and pumping of 25 quarts of blood a day is happening. The scalp pattern is also developing.

She couldn't do it for Sakura. She couldn't do what she wanted her to do and told her so.

_"Sakura, I know you're under a lot of pressure, but I won't condone you making one of the biggest mistakes of your life. Besides, since the baby is of one of Konoha's founding clans, it belongs to Konoha, and under the Atarashī Jinsei Contract, it's impossible. It is illegal to abort a baby during the second trimester if that child is from Konoha clan blood."_

She just sat there in the chair that always stayed to the front of her desk—hardly a comforting constant—, stared at her with dead eyes, put her tongue in her cheek and walked away.

Kakashi's chakra signature at the door of her office faded as he walked her home.

If she had known things would turn out this way, she would've agreed. The law be damned. Her hokageship be damned. Everything be damned.

If she had realized sooner Sakura would've been targeted for holding the Uchiha heir. If she had realized what Sakura was asking for wasn't due to some nerves and self convincing logistics...

She had condemned her own apprentice to her death in the form of trying to keep her future family together. If she had known sooner, she would've killed Sasuke and ripped Sakura apart only to stitch her together again—whole, alive, and without any add-ons.

Tsunade knew she was fully capable of doing so.

It was a morbid thought, yes.

But you could do no better in her position.

At the time Sakura had walked into her office and quietly told her she _"needed to speak with her for a while now about something important,"_ the baby would've been four inches and weighed nearly three ounces.

Now, Tsunade just knew if anyone performed a sonogram on the pinkette, they could tell her the uterus had extended to her belly button.

She was almost five months along now.

Sakura had been swept off her feet in a flurry of sedatives and broken glass about a month ago.

The latest team Tsunade sent to scout the area of Kabuto's lair was sure to have been taken hostage; They were due back a week ago.

Things were bleak to say the least.

Tsunade leaned back in her chair and spun with the tips of her feet to look out the window behind her.

It was a dark night in Konoha. The stars were only visible from the top of the tower, she'd learned after so many nights of looking through the same window. All the lights from the village below ruined the scenery while she sat in her office.

Tsunade hoisted herself up from her chair, sidestepped her desk in the dark office, fumbled for the handle to her door and left.

* * *

"Stop it, Bushy Brows! You need to heal some more before you start trying to get out of bed!"

Lee's head hit his pillow just as Naruto smiled apologetically. He obviously hadn't meant to push the taijutsu specialist so harshly.

Kakashi directed his gaze to the window beside Lee's bed and looked at the well darkened sky. There were no stars. The stars didn't stand a chance at being scene from this altitude.

It had been almost a month since he walked in on Naruto, curled into a ball, crying on the floor of Sasuke's room.

In that time, Kiba and Lee had woken up.

Kiba, without his memory.

Lee was without entire mobility of his limbs.

But he still had his memory.

And he remembered clearly that Sasuke had attacked him during his early morning meditation at the dock and injected him with an unknown substance.

Kakashi grimly remembered the blood that had dribbled out of Sakura's mouth after giving Lee CPR.

It had been too long since Sakura had been taken, drugged by the only man she ever truly loved, and smashed their team picture on the shinobi's head in the process of defending herself.

He had broken his Team Seven picture so long ago with the swipe of an angered hand. Well, not so long ago. Probably almost three months ago.

He never bothered to get it fixed.

Things never did get fixed, right?

Sasuke's memory was still gone and now he was officially a dangerous enemy... again.

Naruto, as much as he tried to hide it, still struggled with feeling like a useless pasha left behind in the time of war, pushed out by the rest of his team.

Sakura's apology to him was never heard.

Now, she was gone.

And he probably wouldn't ever get to hear it. He wouldn't ever hear her content "good morning" or her soft spoken "good night", or even her painful words about his neglect and her demanding questions when it came to seeing her as someone more than just "the girl on my team with Sasuke and Naruto".

He would give anything to hear her scream at him until her throat hurt and he was choking while trying to find the words to console her, although the only thing that would come out of his mouth would be a pathetic excuse.

When did he lose faith that she was still alive? It had been such a long month.

His worst habit was losing faith too quickly. He'd seen enough dead eyes staring back at him from the low ground of muddied battlefields to keep faith.

Kakashi let go of a long breath through his nose.

He wished he was on his way to save her.

He wished he was on his way to save them both.

A feeling of self loathing came over him about a week after sweeping up the broken remnants of that picture frame. He hadn't bothered sleeping that night. It clicked that Sasuke—_"For your Chunin Exam, I'm going to teach you my own technique. Your Sharingan will help you pick it up easier than without it. Ready?" "...I'm ready."_—his boy, Sasuke, his protege, Sasuke, his _favorite_, was the one to do this to Sakura.

Sasuke. The boy who had everything, then lost it all, went on a journey to get something—just a little something—back, then found it was waiting for him in Konoha. The shinobi who lost his memory and was used against the one person who loved him enough to make up for all the people who couldn't love him. Sasuke. The boy who brought that person to the land of the dead with nothing left behind but evidence of his betrayal.

_Sasuke._

He was the one that did this.

After all this time, Kakashi just wanted to be able to save him. Yet, while Sasuke was here, lost without his memories, he had done nothing but shun him.

Kakashi dragged a heavy hand over his face, momentarily shielding his eye from the bright lights of the hospital room.

He obviously wasn't doing so well. Repenting was all he had been doing and it was taking a toll on him. He knew it. He felt it. But he wasn't the worst one off.

It killed him to think of what kind of torture Sakura was going through right now.

But Tsunade, obviously troubled and in a tight spot because she knows she shouldn't send them into the fray blind because a _shit ton_ of shinobi have gone missing near the place Sakura was probably in, but there is also the fact that _her fucking_ _apprentice_ _has been kidnapped_, hadn't set up a rescue team.

Protocol says the first priority after a shinobi is taken is to gather intel on the situation.

A team had already been sent to scout the area, but was ordered to leave at the first sight of conflict. So many shinobi had disappeared already and the Hokage couldn't afford any more.

The team came rushing back within three days, half of them in critical condition, two lost and another three injured. One was captured.

The team that was on the field now was most likely dead.

Protocol was killing them.

After the death of his father, he had become such a stickler for protocol. Regardless of emotional involvement and precious people that didn't deserve to die... Rationality and Reason were the two things he held dear.

The death of Obito had softened him up.

Rin's murder made him change his entire nindo.

But he had lost the ability to rationalize with Sakura. Sakura—soft, bright eyed, purely good _Sakura—_was taken from Konoha. It was getting harder to sit through summonings with this knowledge and the armrests on the chairs wouldn't withstand much more vicious gripping.

From him or Naruto.

Kakashi stood up from his seat beside the door, moving to walk out of the hospital room, barely hearing Naruto's prying questions.

He stopped then.

Naruto.

_Fuck_, Naruto.

He hadn't thought about Naruto. Then again, Naruto was always in the middle, wasn't he? Not quite ignored, but not really adored.

The middle child.

The boy was crying.

"Please... If you're going to leave, don't leave me behind. I need to help."

Rock Lee watched on in silence and thanked Kami that he wasn't a part of the "legendary Team Seven".They all just kept...leaving. Even when it was clear that they needed each other.

The whole entire thing was just sickening.

Naruto had the beg his sensei not to leave him behind. His sensei feels compelled to put his entire being in saving his other two students—who have been completely ignored (i.e. Sakura) or totally taken under his wing (i.e. Sasuke)—by himself, when there is another living, breathing, teammate in the room with him.

His stomach hurt.

"Go to Tsunade and get the copy of Team Thirteen's mission scroll. I'll pack."

The two left the room separately: Kakashi, through the door, and Naruto, out the window.

It wasn't quite the image of a functioning team. They were still going in opposite directions.

But it was something.

Lee hoped that was enough.

* * *

The extent of her notes had to be separated into three different piles, all sloppily stacked. She had no time for the intricacies of the impeccable neatness she was used to. Then again, Sakura always had a way of throwing her off balance.

And the girl was still present, even without her presence.

The lab was lit extensively. Every lamp was on. Every overhead bulb was shining down on her. The brightness made her eyes hurt but it helped her focus. Sakura would've been in with a mug full of tea by now. The girl knew she couldn't handle coffee.

Shizune had witnessed the extreme disorder and panic that had followed the news of the kunoichi's departure. Not many knew the circumstances under which she was gone. Not everyone knew she had been taken. According to Tsunade, it would stay that way. Anymore pandemonium and truth let out around the village would cause a few figures to be burned in effigy.

She had witnessed Naruto's sniffling and subsequent withdrawal from society— except to go to Ichiraku, where he would order three bowls and reserve stools that wouldn't be used— and Tsunade's abstaining from sake. She hadn't even touched the stuff since Sakura..."left". Kakashi in particular was a mess. The man had hardly spoken in the past few weeks. Lee kept trying to get out of bed. Ino didn't seem particularly affected. Tenten was surprisingly grim. And so was Shino, not that most could tell with how introverted the boy was.

They all had been in and out of Tsunade's office in the past days at least once.

Shizune had observed them all.

And herself? She had thrown her mind into work and getting Tsunade coffee. She hadn't slept in two days or eaten since yesterday.

There was just something that screamed the pinkette's name as she looked at the sheet of data in front of her. Numbers and letters and signs and punctuation blurred together. She knew she'd seen this before. She'd seen this kind of genius before.

The complexities of poison aren't easily learned by anyone. Shizune luckily had the experience only from accompanying Tsunade on her endless travels before her hokageship.

Vomiting blood.

Inexplicable bruising and welts surfaced on the skin.

Memory blocks.

Poison wasn't understood by many. Shikamaru, arguably the brightest shinobi to be produced by the Leaf, didn't know wolfsbane from nightlock. You had to know the power of compounds and understand the dangers of a misread dosage and the brilliance of Paracelsus. Shizune knew this all, and that was how she knew this substance flowing through the veins of members of the jounin elite was not a poison.

Poisons have limits.

Poisons attacked the organs and body systems, cells and their organelles to result in a lack of productivity in the body that would result in the shutting down of the heart.

But poisons could not control the mind, ruin the processes of the folds of the cerebrum or cause mental blockage of memories.

Sakura had been experimenting with the manipulation of chakra in another's system. With the right chakra control, one can seemingly become invincible. The girl had already been making healing balms with bits of her medicinal chakra for years and the balms brought in an immense amount of money for her.

At times, Shizune thought she ought to be jealous of Sakura.

The girl had already surpassed her and was soon to surpass Tsunade...

_Whatever_, that was a story for another time.

One day, about two months after Sasuke's return, he'd made a comment about the limitations of being a medic nin to Kakashi, who had agreed. In a fit of rage, Sakura took residence in her office and the lab, alternating between rooms for about a week, brainstorming ways to turn her medical affinity into an offensive power in a way different from her chakra scalpels. This is how she discovered the biggest project of her career thus far: Dokubutsu Kanri

They named the project "DK" for short and started right away. With the completion of Dokubutsu Kanri, the manipulation of chakra in poison to control by the use of jutsu, it would allow one to invade the processes of an enemy's body. It would be used in cases of interrogation, control, or the battlefield. The poison would be able to invade the chakra pathways and station itself at the vital tenketsu of the body—those of the brain, eyes, heart, liver, lungs and other important regions. The chakra pathways would expand and battle with the invading energy and one's blood would have to rise to the surface of the skin, creating bruises and bleeding. Tears in the vessels would occur, especially the carotid arteries, causing the throat to swell with blood.

Shizune's eyes widened and she ran to Sakura's abandoned office, sneezing as the layers of dust on all the furniture filled the air when the door slammed into a nearby bookcase.

She had to find Sakura's notes and fast.

About a year ago, experimental notes of the project were sent with a messenger to Suna. Sakura told Gaara of the potential power of the developmental weapon on his last visit and he stated he would help fund her research once she found ground on the project.

If she remembered correctly, the messenger never made it to Suna, but the notes were all coded and extremely basic in terms of information. They thought nothing of it.

However, if someone with extremely advanced medical expertise got the notes, they would've been able to piece together the project themselves.

Shizune coughed on dust as she pulled the DK Project file out of Sakura's drawer, checking to make sure she was right.

The results were parallel, as if Sakura _herself_ had infected the victims.

Shizune made her way to Tsunade.

The situation was worse than they had feared.

* * *

Sakura made no attempt to move in the bathtub she was restricted to. Well, no attempts that worked. It was pointless to try moving her limbs in Kabuto's presence. She could feel him standing by the door of the soaking room she was in even without her chakra. Her body became all the more numb whenever he was around.

The steam from the water didn't impair her breathing like it did back in Konoha, but the hot water did nothing to wake her limbs from entropy like it did back in Konoha either.

She was numb. She had been numb all this time.

Half the time, she drifted in the dark recesses of her mind, looking at old memories over and over again. She thought up better comebacks for arguments she'd already been in. With Ino. Naruto. Kakashi. _Sasuke. _

She could feel her wrist twitch in the hot water. It was a poor attempt at flinching. _  
_

Thinking of Sasuke was always the worst. Or the best. She didn't know anymore.

Many of her best memories...

/

Sakura tucked a short, stray lock of hair behind her ear, but it was _too damn short_ to stay.

Tuck.

Fall.

_Tuck._

_Fall._

"You motherf—"

"Sakura."

She spun quickly to meet Sasuke's gaze.

"Sasuke-kun... What are doing here? I told you I had to review for that big surgery tomorrow."

Sasuke unearthed a pale wooden box from behind his back and placed it on the side of her desk that wasn't cluttered with papers and the bulky frame of a medical textbook.

"Why are you staring at yourself so hard?"

"...I wasn't staring _that_ hard."

"I've been standing here for more than three minutes."

"...Oh."

Sakura looked down from her guilty looking reflection at the small, lightly calloused hands in her lap. There was a two-inch scar on her pale knee.

Sakura risked another look at the mirror in front of her.

And her hair was so damn short.

Ino had given her a whole spiel about how she would look more feminine if she would stop cutting her hair at random times, then she would look girlier. That discussion later spawned a critique of her entire look.

Then, Ino threw in a joking few words: "I don't know why Sasuke can stand to look at you, Forehead."

Too bad she'd taken it to heart.

"Sasuke-kun..." Chancing a look at him, he had an eyebrow raised, which meant to tell him why she was acting like a total weirdo, "Do you think I'm pretty?"

He actually looked like she struck him.

Sasuke listened to her question and, although he knew his answer, he couldn't help but think about why she was bothering to ask him such a nonsensical question. Sakura never bothered asking him superficial questions after they both grew up and that hadn't changed since they started dating three weeks ago... _unless_ it had something to do with their new relationship.

Sasuke analyzed her sad frown and the thoughtful crease between her delicate brows and decided that he didn't mind going out of character for her question.

(Sakura + sadness + thoughtfulness did not result in anything positive. Ever.)

Sasuke moved behind her seated form and bent his head to place a kiss on her exposed shoulder.

"The fact that you're beautiful doesn't affect our relationship in any way. I don't care how you wear your hair or what you wear... although I do like that red blouse you wear to work."

With a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth, Sasuke left.

It was a good thing to.

She spent the rest of the night clutching her pillow and squealing.

/

"Naruto's pushing me to make a huge deal about our one month anniversary tomorrow."

Sakura's reading glasses were pushed down to the end of her nose when she looked up at him. With a solid look, she silently prodded him to continue.

She was picking up on his habits.

"Sakura, I don't know a damn thing about anniversaries. My parents never celebrated anything that I could notice..."

Her breath hitched in her throat at the mention of Sasuke's parents. He just told her something about his parents...

Sakura stood up and circled her desk to stand in front of Sasuke, who'd taken to look at a distant spot through her clean window.

"I want to wake up next to you and be extremely lazy until we absolutely have to get up."

Sasuke looked at her from his height advantage thee there was a confused scrunch to his face.

"But...that's what we did this morning."

"Exactly. I don't want anything to change."

/

And worst memories...

/

Her toes were soaked in the blood that pooled under the redhead's body.

She had to do this.

And she had to do it _now_.

Sakura shakily held on to the kunai in her hand and had started to contemplate maybe turning around when her peripheral vision caught a ray of bright light. The sounds of a thousand birds resounded in her ears.

It was too late to be the morning sun rise, and she was not back in Konoha, laying in bed, listening to the cacophony of calls outside her window and-

_-I'mgoingtodie._

Sasuke's hand came so close she could feel the shorter hairs on her head began to rise from her scalp and the back of her neck was met with a heat so intense she could almost see the red glow of her skin.

The next thing she knew, someone was holding her with steady hands and the easy grace of a hero saving the heroine against the arch villain.

That's all she ever would be. An extra pawn of leverage between Sasuke and Naruto.

For a split second, she wished for Sasuke's hand at her neck again.

/

"Sasuke...please... don't. Now that you're finally in my reach, I'm scared, Sasuke. I'm so scared that I'll lose you again. So please, don't leave. Stay with me. I need you now more than ever."

"I have to go. I only came to say goodbye."

"Sasuke, please."

He couldn't actually be doing this to her. Swooping in right as she was about to leave her apartment and find him. Leaving as soon as she finally gathered enough courage to tell him she was pregnant.

Big hands reached down to cradle her face and pull her in for a kiss. He murmured his goodbye against her lips and then he started to move towards her open bedroom door.

She called out to him, but he didn't break his steady stride.

"Sasuke, I'm pregnant."

She was sure she had whispered it to him before his right foot left the vicinity of her bedroom.

He should've heard her say it. Sasuke heard everything.

But he just kept moving and not soon after, her front door shut and she slumped with the gravity of the situation pushing her down onto her messy sheets.

Sasuke just left her.

And she had a feeling he wasn't going to return.

/

...Featured him somehow.

It was strange. She'd been waiting for physical torture involving cutting the tendons in her legs slowly and painfully with a chakra scalpel or manipulating her nerves to feel things that weren't there.

She'd gotten none of that so far.

Instead, she was the one torturing herself.

It was the same routine everyday. She'd wake up and Kabuto would be there to feed her breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast because he knew she had no use of her arms. Then, he'd replace her IV drip, leave, come back after a while and wheel her to a bath while she fruitlessly attempted to look at the other prisoners through the curtains covering their glass confinements. He'd take her out the soaking room, brush her hair a hundred times in the most careful way, and replace her IV. He'd feed her a tasteless dinner and then as soon as he left the room, her eyelids would drop in a thought-filled state of unconsciousness.

She'd recall thoughts of Sasuke and Konoha and herself and dig up unwanted feelings the entire day, effectively making her will to resist anything weaker and weaker as the day went on.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, there was a redhead passing a brush through her hair.

The malicious intent radiating off of her couldn't be mistaken.

"I don't know what he ever saw in you."

Those were the first words the girl had said to her since wheeling her back to her prison.

Unconsciously, Sakura's eyebrows furrowed and her heart picked up its pace a bit.

She gave a harsh tug to Sakura's damp hair.

"I was with him for years. _Years. _Then all of a sudden, he decides to go back to Konoha and get you pregnant."

Sakura could feel a few hairs being ripped from her scalp but she remained silent. She was a ninja and pain helped her, more than hurt her.

This woman knew Sasuke? The familiarity Sakura found in her face was sparse, but it was still there. She knew she had seen the redhead somewhere before, but she couldn't be sure.

"I was there when you and that idiot blonde weren't. I was there when he was hunting down Itachi. I was there to heal him. And even when he went back to Konoha, he still returned to me," the woman barked out a cocky laugh and tugged at Sakura's knot free hair, digging into her scalp,"And now, he's back with us again. It must be fate."

_And now, he's back with us again._

_He's back with us, again._

_He's back with us._

_He's back. _

"Karin. From Team Taka."

The next thing Sakura knew, her head was thrown down on the pillow below her with a yank of her hair. Karin stood over her, using the opportunity to look down at her and sneer distastefully as if Sakura had stolen something from her.

"The very same. So, you remember me."

"I healed you after Sasuke almost killed you."

Karin's jaw set in a hard clench of her teeth as she eyed the pink haired woman below her. In truth, Karin didn't have an ounce of sympathy or gratitude towards her. But she had copious amounts of hate and anger, which was one of two reasons why she had agreed to help Kabuto with his plan in the first place. The other reason was that she got to see Sasuke again. He was as beautiful as ever, now even more so. Absence had made her heart grow fonder, her memory go foggier, and her yearning for him get stronger. Sitting beside his bed every day made the time spent preparing Sakura's meals and washing her linens worth it.

"Do you always beg for any scrap of recognition? That's pretty needy of you. Maybe that's why Sasuke came to me when he did."

"You're a liar."

Sakura's body may have felt limp from the drugs running through her, but her eyes were defiant. They looked into Karin and the redhead switched her gaze to Sakura's protruding belly, secretly unnerved by Sakura's probing stare.

"No, I'm not. And it's a good thing he found me when he did. Poor Sasuke-kun was so strung up from being around bitches like you in Konoha for too long."

"You're delusional."

And once again, Karin laughed. But this time, it didn't seem forced. She truly found something funny with the situation at hand.

"I'll have you know that you're the delusional one if you think you were his first choice."

The statement barely made a dent in Sakura's armor. Having a chakra-laced substance pumped into you at a relentless pace and swimming in the sequence of your own memories gives you the reprieve to think, regret, understand and move on. Sakura had finally come to term with the doubts that she'd contemplated ever since Sasuke walked out of her door and didn't look back.

One of them being that she was precious to Sasuke. He might not have loved her, but when he was in Konoha, he cared for her. They fought, he made her feel worthless, she made him feel guilty and their relationship progressed into something that was ugly and warped... but the fact still stood that he did care about her. And she was an idiot to not be sure of that.

Another of them was that regardless of Sasuke caring about her, she couldn't truly expect for him to make her his first priority. He was too jaded and broken and rotten inside. He was obsessed with his family to a point she couldn't understand. All of his love went to them and that was something she couldn't and _wouldn't dare_ attempt to change.

She could never understand him and any relationship they tried to develop was doomed to fail, but during the one they already had, Sasuke tried the best he could and he was the best man he could be. She appreciated that. She believed that with all her heart, which was why Sakura could never look into Karin's eyes and believe Sasuke had betrayed her.

The last was that she was absolutely terrified of him and that she couldn't forget the look in his eyes as his hands continued to curl around her neck, even after the photo she smashed on his head. The glass embedded itself in the side of his face, but he... he just kept...

Sakura shook her head to erase the scene that was morphing at the front of her mind.

Regardless of how she came to be in this bed, drugged out of her mind, she knew Sasuke would never betray her.

He surely wouldn't touch the likes of _Karin_, who he left behind once he rejoined the village.

"For someone who's going to die soon enough, you sure do have a big ego."

Sakura looked back at Karin, who was still in the same position she'd last seen her—standing over her with a disdain that rivaled the way Sasuke looked at her when he first called her "annoying".

A sharp pain rippled through Sakura's heart at the memory. She swallowed down the feeling and decided that if Karin was going to antagonize her, she wasn't just going to take it laying down while she... laid down.

Defiance while in captivity was difficult while being unable to move your limbs.

"For someone who's in love with a guy who wouldn't touch you with a yard-long stick, you sure do have a big ego."

Sakura's back rose slightly off the bed as Karin's fingers clenched onto the front of the clean, white hospital gown. The redhead's flaming eyes stared into her cool emerald orbs and a sneer appeared on her lips before she closed her eyes and a smile formed from seemingly nowhere.

"I'll show you, bitch."

Sakura only had a moment to be surprised once Karin made the sign of the ram and said "Dokubutsu Kanri".

* * *

His eyes were closed as he checked on the rest of his pawns.

Inuzuka Kiba was still in Konoha's hospital and a pretty nurse was giving his pain medication.

Yamanaka Ino was in the Yamanaka home.

Nara Shikamaru, Hyuuga Neji, and Hyuuga Hinata's energies were all dormant, signalling their deep sleeping.

Kabuto sat back in Orochimaru's old chair, the back cushion hardly worn because of his old master's impeccable posture. How proud Orochimaru-sama would be with him now. Everything was running smoothly and soon enough the entirety of Konoha's brightest jonin generation would be under his control. With them, he would infect the rest of Konoha's ninja classes and, eventually, take over the rest of the shinobi nations with his strength.

Kabuto turned to look at his second greatest weapon, the body of Uchiha Sasuke, and took note of its comatose state.

He needed to put the Uchiha in a temporarily constant state of rest. It wouldn't do for him to lose control of his body now as he almost did with Sasuke was in Konoha, gallivanting with his old team. However, it was only in Kabuto's most far-fetched dream that he would have possession of such raw, natural power in the form of the unborn first child of Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura.

The Sharingan and perfect chakra control made for a deadly combination that he hadn't expected to behold. But Haruno Sakura's body in his imprisonment held it for him. It was like the gods of fate were advocating the will of Orochimaru.

His musings were cut short as Karin slipped into his office with a flare of chakra on the seal of his door. She walked to the front of his desk looking pleased with herself above all else. Kabuto's eyes narrowed.

"Her condition?"

He didn't trust Karin's actions around Sakura's "indisposed" person. The girl had useful healing powers, but she was incredibly stupid and hot-tempered and there was no doubt in his mind that she had let her malicious intent towards the pink haired girl get in the way of his mission.

Kabuto made a note to check on the Haruno after his rounds with his other... "indisposed" patients.

"She's resting."

The lie slipped easy through Karin's lips like a satisfying breath of air.

* * *

Soooo, the next chapter will be up soon. Like very soon.

Let me know what you think.

xx mm.


	20. Priorities

**A/N:** I told you guys this chapter would be out very soon.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XIX

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**NOTE: **RIP NEJI.

* * *

_"There is no one else for me..."_

Sasuke said this to her once, in no declaration of love or romantic attraction. It was after the worst argument they ever had.

_"I'm trying to make you happy, but I don't know if I can, Sasuke! You're as cynical and cold as you ever were since coming back to Konoha. I'm trying to hold on to you as long as I can but you make it so hard and I just_ _don't know if I can do it anymore!"_

She came to him in the middle of the night six months after they'd been dating. He had disappeared for two weeks on everyone, missing four dates, two team dinners, 10 team lunches, and a birthday.

Her birthday.

And as soon as she found him in the market on a late night, he told her he didn't "have time" for her and used the teleportation jutsu.

She proceeded to stand there like an idiot and then go to his house after 20 minutes, where she said things through her tears that she could hardy remember now.

She screamed for what seemed like hours at the top of her lungs.

She had never yelled at Sasuke before then and when she realized what she did, she stood there, silent.

He then said to her, _"There is no one else for me...but you."_

It hadn't been romantic or yearning or begging but she hadn't needed it to be. It was Sasuke saying it so she took it and she believed him. He never lied. But he did run away. And when he ran away from everyone for 2 weeks, she never knew why. She never knew why he didn't bother to tell her he was back from his simple reconnaissance mission and went straight home when the usually routine was for him to come to her house for a post-mission checkup as soon as he returned.

Now she knew that he had locked himself up in his home out of guilt.

He had reassured her out of guilt.

And she had forgiven him without question, believing he had heard something that left him distraught instead of believing he'd done something to hurt her instead.

She knew everything now, including the harsh stinging slap of betrayal.

She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her system now, a feeling she hadn't felt in a while with Kabuto always nearby, guarding and watching and keeping her alive for the sickest reasons. Her heart pounded against her chest and her fingers tingled as her body systems sped up. Her metabolism was working overtime and it was a good feeling.

When she could move her right hand, Sakura finally understood why.

In all her superiority, Karin hadn't replaced Sakura's IV.

Her mind moved quickly in it's new state of awareness.

Sakura pulled the IV stand and tried to use it as leverage to get her partially numb body out of bed, but all she did was send herself slipping towards the ground. She landed on her back in the most painful and amazing way. The coldness of the white floor and pain of the impact ricocheted between her bones and made her head throb.

The medic in her relished the fall.

Tsunade had drilled into her mind that pain was progress; a motto she would never forget.

Sakura took slow breaths as she picked her back off the ground, settling on her hands and knees in a crawl towards the glass door. Her bulging stomach weighed her down, but she managed to maneuver into a seated position. A sharp pain struck through her and she had to gasp for breath. She moved to cradle her stomach in her arms and stopped.

There were red welts rising from her skin.

Sakura tried to stifle down her panic and approach the situation from a rational viewpoint.

The collections of blood under the surface of her skin meant the Dokubutsu Kanri was officially activated in her chakra stream. She could feel Kabuto's foreign energy in her body, a completely different feeling than what she'd experienced while in bed.

There was a reason why Kabuto hadn't activated the poison yet.

Looks like Karin forgot the activation of the jutsu could effectively kill her baby.

Sakura tossed her head back and laughed until her sides hurt.

* * *

Karin caressed the ends of the strands on sasuke's head. Kabuto had expressly forbidden touching Sasuke.

She couldn't resist.

He looked so peaceful.

The fading yellow of his jaw was just one of the many added decorations to his person. The bandage that went from his forehead to all around and was clipped above his left ear. The healed cut that went from his collar bone to the corner of his mouth was still a little pink in contrast to his usual pallor. There was a crease between his eyebrows and it nearly made her swoon. After searching for him so long, here he was, unconscious in front of her, looking more beatiful than he ever did.

His lips were parted slightly; the bottom one had a split right in the middle.

They were a chapped pair, but somehow looked more inviting than the first time they left sizzling trails on her skin.

The tips of Karin's red hair formed a barrier between Sasuke's face and the rest of the world. She leaned, hardly resisting the desire to place her mouth on his.

A deep, hoarse voice spoke.

"What are you doing?"

"S-Sasuke-kun..."

Karin was stunned that he had awoken now. Kabuto had told her Sasuke was almost comatose and that he shouldn't wake anytime soon. Of course, this is only as true as Kabuto stays in the immediate vicinity. The problem with the Dokubutsu Kanri was its tendency to become weaker with added distance between the controller and the controlled. And her Sasuke-kun was a naturally strong-willed man to begin with. It was the reason why Kabuto had rushed Sasuke back to Otokagure, in a flurry of panic over his increased attachment with the girl she had just shown herself gallivanting the shinobi she was hopelessly in love with. Haruno Sakura was a fool in the way of greater plans.

Plans that involved she and Sasuke.

Karin wasn't ignorant to Kabuto's agenda. She wasn't ignorant to how he was trying to fulfill what he believed to be Orochimaru's will. She knew he was trying to infect Sasuke's generation of Konoha Jonin and she wasn't as stupid to believe that Kabuto hadn't activated the Dokubutsu Kanri in Haruno Sakura on a whim. She was pregnant and he wanted to salvage what would be, she begrudgingly admitted, an innately talented child.

But—Karin turned to eye the small bottle of clear liquid and syringe on the metal tray behind her—she didn't care about Kabuto's plans.

She wouldn't let him use her Sasuke-kun as some kind of tool in the grand scheme of things.

Karin leaned back on the metal stool beside Sasuke's bed and placed her hand on his.

He ripped his hand away from hers—a feat of no small effort for someone who hadn't moved his limbs in weeks.

She ignored his jerking away. It seemed he had no idea where he was; there was no doubt that he'd be on edge, even in front of her.

"How are you feeling, Sasuke-kun?"

He looked at her, dark eyes narrowed and angry.

"Where am I?"

Karin giggled and shook her head. Sasuke hated being out of the loop. He was always so impatient to know things.

"You're in Kabuto's base, Sasuke-kun."

The Uchiha looked past Karin to the white walls of Kabuto's office. The bright fluorescent lighting hurt his eyes. Everything was so..._ white_. And clean. And familiar in the most unfamiliar way. Sasuke went to rub his eyes and found he couldn't move his arms any farther than he already had away from Karin.

Looking down, he saw that there were chakra restraints on his wrists that had an extension that latched on to the metal rails of the bed he was in. His legs were held down by a sturdy, thick brown leather buckle he could feel tightly bound on his legs. Karin said he was in Kabuto's base, which meant he had gotten captured during his team's mission. Sasuke's thought process stopped and then went into overdrive at the thought of his team.

Where were they? Were they alive?

The worst part was the last thing he remembered from the mission was hopping trees in the forest.

No ambush.

No accidental poisonings.

No deaths.

The first seed of panic was planted in his gut and he instinctively looked around for an escape route. His eyes moved in the direction Karin's eyes had slid to when he first came to awareness. There was a metal tray on a white stand that held a small, mostly transparent bottle of liquid with a black top, a sanitizing wipe, and a disposable syringe. The bottle was clearly labeled as "Potassium Chloride Concentrate" in bold letters. A vague sense of danger crept onto him and a nagging voice in his head told him to stay away from the contents in that bottle and to not let Karin get near him with a syringe full of it. Sasuke eyed the red head that was inspecting her nails in a pseudo-casual fashion.

He narrowed his eyes.

He didn't know Karin's motives for being at his bedside or her role in his capture, but if he was anything like the person he encountered last time he saw her, she would be nothing but compliant towards his demands.

"Where are my teammates, Karin?"

Her head shot up and he could almost make out the vein threatening to pop out of her forehead.

"They're probably being checked up on by Kabuto, Sasuke-kun."

With the knowledge that his teammates were alive, his panic ebbed away for the moment. For whatever reason, his team was being kept alive, so there was a chance that if he could get out of these restraints, then he could look for their chakra and get to them.

He looked back at Karin's forced expression of pleasantness.

The thought of using Karin during another of his missions made him uneasy. The last time she appeared during one of his missions, he had done something he still regretted to this day, but if she was his only way out, he didn't have a choice.

He would have to appeal to the only interests he knew she had: Her and himself.

"What are you doing here, Karin?"

A light dust of pink settled itself on Karin's cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

Hn. She still blushed the same. But her emotions were even more turbulent. He would have to tread lightly...

"W-Well, I'm here to help you, Sasuke-kun. I can't just let you be used by Kabuto like some tool. I love you and I want what's best for you. I want what's best for us."

Sasuke struggled not to roll his eyes at her words.

He didn't love Karin. He couldn't love Karin. He hated having her at his bedside and the one time he had given her a scrap of attention was one of his worst mistakes. The only person that he ever wanted at his bedside… was back in Konoha. And she was waiting for him. And he left her to cry on her own.

And he hardly wanted to address the part of him that thought of the reckless behavior Naruto was exuding because he had been gone longer than he was supposed to or the silent regret Kakashi was secretly enduring because of his lateness.

Sasuke's resolve to get out of the mess he was in strengthened.

He had to get home to Sakura.

He had to get home to _Team Seven_.

It was where he belonged.

Sasuke cleared his throat and made direct eye contact with his only way out.

"Take these restraints off me, Karin."

* * *

Using chakra hurt.

A lot.

It felt like her veins were on fire and her vital tenketsu were particularly lucid, but she didn't have a choice. The glass door out of the box she was in was activated by a chakra flare.

It took forever to gain control over her chakra without disturbing the foreign energy in her chakra pathways. Sakura wished she could just use the release jutsu that would break the hold of Kabuto's power over her, but it was nearly impossible unless she could get the ingredients for the carrier poison's antidote. With the antidote, the compounds that allowed for the chakra's existence would disintegrate into harmless protein and so would the chakra in her system. For now, she would have to endure the pain.

Sakura braced herself with one hand against the glass wall and another on the seal of the door. Just a little more and—

Aha! She was free!

With a bit of hesitance, Sakura slipped out of the edge of the curtain that shielded her from the rest of the building and looked around the small strip of hallway she was wheeled up and down every day, to and from the soaking room.

She hadn't expected to look into a pair of pale, lavender-tinted eyes.

"Neji?"

* * *

This chapter is in dedication to:

**NARUTO 631: **Because holy fucking shit, I am so hype! My babies are back together! THE TEAM SEVEN/SASUSAKU FEELS ARE KILLLINNNNNGGGGGG MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

**Tumblr: **My feels are exacerbated by the almight "sasusaku" tag and it just pumped me up to a crazy degree. My **url** is **"pumped-up-bics"**. Follow me... or not... I don't want you guys to feel pressured lol. And if you want me to write any prompts, let me know!

**New story followers:** HEY! HEY YOU! Let me know what kind of job I'm doing! And thanks so much for reading and following! You guys are a big part of why I'm all chapter crazy right now.

Until next time!

xx mm.


	21. Distant Constellation

**A/N:** I'm sorry this took so long to update! Life gets in the way sometimes. This is really rough, since I haven't edited yet. So bare with me.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XXI

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

Neji was aware of the kind of reputation he held around Konoha. He was a more than competent nin, even by the standards of the Hyuga clan. Even though he was a part of a branch of the clan, instead of the main house. He was a calm, cool, collected shinobi who was prepared for any situation. He was known for his visual prowess above all of his other accomplishments in various fields of ninja aptitude.

Hyuga Neji did not lose his cool.

Hyuga Neji did not let any detail escape his attention.

Hyuga Neji did not know what to think when he saw a pregnant Haruno Sakura clutching the side of a glass wall in the same prison he had been trying to escape. He wanted to take a moment to just stand feet from her in a numb shock, but his body knew better. His feet moved on their own as he hurried to help her.

Once he got closer, he noticed even more.

Her trembling arms as she struggled to hold herself up.

The welts of blood barely under the surface of her skin.

Her shaky breathing.

His steps quickened and he put his arms out to steady the unstable kunoichi's body. Sakura clutched to him and breathed a sigh of relief into his stained hospital gown; he was covered in the blood of the attendant he had stabbed an IV into through the man's unprotected vertebral artery. The cell he had been placed in was showered in blood, as was he.

It somehow made the pristine condition of whiteness in the nightmare he was in a bit easier to look at.

He didn't know how long he had been in that bed, unrestrained, but impaired all the same. It was nice to see the world around him without a glaze to his eyes and even better that he had found Sakura here, who was obviously in dire need of his help.

"Neji, I'm so glad…

"I thought you were…"

Sakura trailed off in what he noticed was a poor attempt at concealing the fact that she was worried to offend him.

"…Sakura?"

Her arms loosened from his person as she regained the strength to stand on her own feet.

"I thought you were going to kill me—"

/

"—for a second there, Neji-san!"

"I always give my all in a spar, Sakura-san, but I would never fatally wound you."

On the grass beneath him, Sakura frowned up at him.

He couldn't help but be extra formal with her. He had been training with Tenten and Lee and Gai for years now. It took all those years to get used to them. Team Gai was a well oiled machine with every member compensating for the others' weaknesses.

To him, Haruno Sakura had no place in the dynamic with her skill set.

Taijutsu was Lee's specialty.

And their four man cell was too full for another member to act as a medic.

Neji casted a look towards the forest green clad duo doing one handed push ups while upside down.

It was all Lee's fault.

It was a widely known fact that Konoha's Green Beast still held a torch for Konoha's Cherry Blossom. It was also a widely known fact that Team Seven was a less than functional group of ninja.

Some called them "a cautionary tale", even after the cell was reformed.

Neji believed them to be pathetic.

The team consisted of Naruto, who, in no offense to him, had a legacy to live up to that was even bigger than his Messiah-complex, Kakashi, who, at his best, was a mediocre sensei that had no idea how to keep a group of anything but his books together, the Uchiha, who Neji still harbored ill-feelings towards, and... that was it.

Haruno Sakura had no place on her team.

She was a talented medical ninja. She had superhuman strength. She was extremely intelligent—second to only Shikamaru, everyone believed. She had the skill of evasion down. She grew up with both her parents. Her hair was _pink._

What place did she have on a team like that? A team full of shinobi with dark pasts and heartache and loss. A team full of testosterone in the form of three males that had the instinct to protect her buried in their bone marrow.

Neji respected Sakura's prowess in the fields she mastered after becoming Tsunade's apprentice—something Tenten had been upset about for many months—but it was clear her team did not. He was anything but dense, and entirely too observant. It was obvious in Sakura's gait. In her posture—chin up, shoulders slouched, but only when she believed no one was looking. In the way she laughed a bit more muted than she did years ago when he went on his first mission with her while Naruto was still traveling with Jiraiya. In the way she never trained with them anymore.

In the way she was trying to improve herself by training with_ his_ team.

Haruno Sakura had no place on her team.

"—eji?"

Neji looked at his weapons-obsessed team member who was rushing him to come help her on her blind spot.

"I'm coming."

But that didn't mean she had a place on his.

/

Eleven kunai.

Six shuriken.

And two summoning scrolls.

Neji stored his things into the packs on his hips and swished in a circular motion to test for stability.

He frowned at the feeling of slow rain drops picking up their pace on his head.

He hadn't meant to be caught out here in the rain; Last time, Tenten had nursed him back to health and then gave him a week-long red mark on his face when she smacked him for training in the wet torrents that fell in Konoha.

Sure that he had all this belongings secured, Neji sped off towards the northeast of the forest, closest to the Hyuga compound in distance. With how crisp the morning air was, the byakugan user had taken to the southwestern part of Konoha, near the river that ran along the edge of the village.

Neji felt the rain drops grow plumper and they started to soak through his clothes, even at the fast pace he was traveling. Tree-hopping was out of the question, with the slickness of the branches and the tendency of stray leaves to trip up traveling ninja. As Neji's light feet practically hovered over the muddy ground below him, his eyes spotted a figure in the distance.

_Who in their right mind—?_

Whether it was Gai's teachings telling him to care for the fellow youth in everyone he encountered, Neji found himself speeding towards the person in the distance to tell them to get themselves out of the-_  
_

"Sakura-san?"

It was unmistakable. Her pastel colored hair was darkened from the steady fall of water above them and the only thing that lit the woods she was in was the lighting miles away from them. The shadows deepened the contour of her face and, as if disregarding the world around her, Sakura stood among the green and the mud on one foot. Her other leg was swung behind her in the most locked position he had ever seen. Her torso was parallel to the ground an her arms her spread at her sides, like wings. With the weight of her torso, she should have fallen forward with the slightest of shifts, yet she seemed comfortable in her position.

Well...

As comfortable as a shinobi could be in that position.

"Neji-san."

She said his name in such a dismissive tone, he could tell she was so concentrated on her pose that she hardly noticed his presence.

"What are you doing?"

Hyugas, with the exception of Hinata, weren't ones for pleasantries. If she was to train with his team tomorrow, she couldn't be sick.

"Discipline training. And keeping my control sharp."

He still didn't understand completely.

Sakura shifted in her pose, pushing herself onto the palms of her hands, doing a handstand that ended with her legs being held in mid air, perfectly parallel to the ground.

He mused that he could probably sit on her legs - that seemed as sturdy as a bench - and she would be undisturbed in her balance.

"Don't let me keep you, Neji-san."

"You're going to get sick."

He was speaking out of concern for her health - physical and mental.

Only someone who was out of their mind would be out here in the rain.

Yet, here he was.

"I'll be fine, Neji-san. You won't be if Tenten finds out you've been out loitering in weather like this."

_Crap._

She was right.

And she knew she was right with the smug look she gave him from her low perspective near the dirty floor of the woods._  
_

"You can't be sick for tomorrow. We're sparing in pairs and, since Gai-senpai is only evaluating, there won't be an even number of us if you miss it. Go home."

Neji turned away from her bent posture and started to walk away.

"Neji-san..."

Whether it was the hesitation or determination in her voice that made him turn around, he didn't know. All he knew was that he turned around to find her gracefully put her feet down and stand up straight, all without massaging her muscled limbs from the pain that should've been crippling to her.

"I know that you don't think I fit in with your team, but,_ believe me_... I don't want to encroach on any personal boundaries you may have. I like training with your team because you all seem to fit together so well and be so," she paused to laugh a little, without any humor, "_proactive_. However, if that makes you feel uncomfortable, I can go back to training by myself. I don't want to—"

"Why can't you train with your own team?"

He cut her off—something he almost never did, as he saw it to be extremely rude—without any intended malice and she seemed to understand that. There was no crestfallen expression on her face or tears of woe that could be hidden with the rain.

There was only a pause and then—

"Our dynamic refused to allow me to grow as a shinobi. I have areas I need to work on and that's what I set out to do by training with your team, Neji-san."

—a diplomatic answer, crafted carefully with the most skilled brand of circumlocution a person could foster only from experience attained with an apprenticeship with the Fifth Hokage.

For all the observing he did, Neji realized a few things that he didn't know before Haruno Sakura spoke those words.

The first being that he knew nothing about Haruno Sakura.

The second being that he looked forward to changing that.

"I will see you tomorrow—"

"Sakura."

She clarified with a content voice that said_ I understand you're trying and I thank you for that_.

"Sakura..."

"Yes, Neji-san?"

"...Just Neji."

She smiled, but he heard it more than he saw it and felt it more than he heard it.

"I'll see you tomorrow, 'Just Neji'."

He snorted and then walked away, a weight lifted off his mind that he didn't know was there.

Haruno Sakura was different back then. Different from who she once was. Different from who everyone thought she was now. Different from who her team believed to be.

/

And she still was.

Most girls didn't create a ridiculously dangerous toxin that was the exact reason why they were in the hands of a deranged medical genius and she thought he was going to snap her delicate neck.

Sakura had just finished explaining the pieces to the puzzle she had so far. Somehow, Kabuto had gotten his hands on something she developed called "Dokubutsu Kanri" and was using it to control shinobi.

Including Team Thirteen.

Which included him.

"Neji... do you remember anything about how you got here?"

His lack of explanation was enough to understand he didn't.

The last thing he remembered was traveling through the trees. He could barely recall seeing figures in the distance with his Byakugan, but much like how he got to be in Kabuto's grasp, the concept seemed far, like a distant constellation. He could see, but not decipher what his sparse memories meant. He could make no sense of them just as he couldn't understand why there were so many stars at night or why they joined together to make nonsense shapes.

"We have to find a way out of here. Now. I don't know how far away Kabuto is, but the closer he is, the more he can monitor us. I know it's a lot to ask but... can you use your Byakugan?"

* * *

"I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun. I can't do that."

He was patient. More than he lead on.

But there was something about every time Karin opened her mouth that made him feel as if he had waited long enough.

Her eyes averted to a place in the distance, refusing to look at him. Her chest rose with the inhales and exhales of her calming breaths and he found himself left with the urge to slam her body into a wall.

"You've proven to get into trouble whenever I let you out of my sight, Sasuke-kun..."

* * *

Using chakra was excruciatingly painful.

It felt like his veins were transporting molten hot lava instead of blood and the tenketsu in his eyes were particularly hot. The backs of his eyes scorched with his byakugan, but he was a shinobi.

An exceptionally proud shinobi.

An exceptionally proud shinobi did not crack under the pressure of physical pain.

"Neji, can you see?"

Yes, he could. Clearly. Once he got through the hot haze that almost blinded him, he could see it all.

The place they were in was shielded by a powerful genjutsu and was split into four levels levels, each deeper underground than the previous one, all filled rooms like the ones he and Sakura had been in, too drugged to escape earlier.

Kabuto was on the first level of the headquarters, midst 50 other chakra signatures.

All dormant.

The second floor had 40 more figures, while the third had 30.

On the fourth floor, there were—including he and Sakura—20 people.

Neji noted the differences in chakra between the descending levels. As his range of vision became more concentrated on the fourth level, it was easy to see that Kabuto had placed the shinobi according to their chakra levels and consistency. The top floor seemed to be consist of chunin and—he cringed to note—genin, whose chakra ranged from unruly to slightly tame.

The fourth floor held elite jounin and ANBU-level shinobi, easily identifiable by their controlled chakra, even while unconscious.

But there were two signatures, beside he and Sakura, that weren't dormant and happened to be in the same room.

One of them was unmistakable.

"Sakura... I think I see Sasuke..."

* * *

All he could was stare at her lips as they moved and created the sounds for words.

She was coherent but her words held no sense. They were completely illogical.

Yet, she seemed completely sincere.

"I can't just let you walk out of that door and leave me behind, again. Without me by your side, how can I guarantee that you won't be used as a tool again, Sasuke-kun?"

Tears started to fall from her eyes in a steady stream.

It struck him as odd that she could cry so easily in front of him now, when the only other times she had cried for them, one of them had been on the brink of death.

* * *

"Neji! Where is he!?"

Sakura grabbed him by the front of his stained hospital gown and stared into his pained eyes, but all she did was add to the 359 degrees of surroundings he was witnessing. She was frantic in her movements, as if she knew something he didn't.

Regardless of his all seeing eyes, she probably did.

"He is two hallways down, and another hallway to the right."

She took off before he could even tell her there was someone else.

* * *

"Karin. Take off these restraints._ Now_."

Her red hair moved in the opposite direction as she whipped her head towards him, seemingly steaming from his request.

How could she? How could _she_ be the one exasperated and frustrated with _his_ behavior when_ she_ was the one acting deranged? It was irritating how she was being so difficult. It was aggravating that he had no idea where he was. It was nerve-wracking that he didn't know how his team was.

And it was pissing him the fuck off that he was being kept away from home because Karin continued to hold a torch for him.

As he simmered in his anger, he almost missed Karin's preparation of the syringe.

Almost.

* * *

"Sakura!"

He was panting from exhaustion after scurrying to catch up with her, the pain finally catching up with him.

"Neji, I have to get to him."

"But—"

"NO!"

They both stopped moving down the hallway. Sakura's hysterics were making her just as exhausted as Neji felt.

"You don't understand. I..." Sakura trailed off, but he couldn't tell whether it was for contemplation of word choice or the basic need to catch her breath and composure,"...have to get to him."

And she turned and continued down the long hallway.

Neji liked to believe he knew what Sakura really wanted to say.

At the moment, he knew nothing, so he trailed her by two paces as she moved quickly through the blindingly-lit hallways.

* * *

"I love you, Sasuke-kun."

It should've come to his attention that she was insane the moment he came to. The way she didn't wake him. The way she watched him so meticulously. The way she sat to try and hide the tray behind her in a way that didn't seem too forced.

The way she cried.

She planned to kill him.

He couldn't lie and say a pang of pain from betrayal didn't shoot through him the moment he understood why she was at his bedside.

Karin...

She had always just been so... _loyal_.

Sasuke didn't claim to be an expert on the mannerisms of human beings. He never gave himself the opportunity to be around people worth studying. He never bothered to learn. But he was aware of the repercussions of obsession. He knew the consequences of running after a distant constellation, hoping you would be able to snatch a star- to hope you could find something you believed to be missing.

Karin's obsession with him had eaten her being alive to point where she believed his life without her love and care—the love and care she yearned to give him—was a life where his unhappiness would consume him.

It was just unfortunate for her that he wasn't so unhappy anymore.

His life was no walk among the flowers—not that he was particularly fond of flowers—but he knew that he was close to having a garden of his own.

Sakura was at home, waiting.

Naruto was at home, waiting.

Kakashi was at home, waiting..

_Team Seven_ was his reason for living now.

And he wouldn't Karin take him away from them.

Sasuke focused on the chakra restraints on his wrists, knowing he could snap the extended cuffs attached to the metal rails of the bed with a bit of brute force. He focused on Karin's eyes and put himself in a state of deep concentration while staying attentive enough to fight her off if need be.

If he could just channel his chakra to the tenketsu in his wrists, he could flex enough to break the seal of the restraints off.

But he needed time.

After all, he didn't have Sakura's chakra control.

"I know, Karin."

There was surprise in her eyes.

He had never acknowledged one of her professions of love before.

Not even when they had spent their only night together.

"I know you love me, Karin," Sasuke shifted his chakra in his wrists, feeling where the chakra restraints were the weakest, "I understand that you want to make me happy...", He almost smirked as felt the weak spot start to give way under his unrelenting bursts of chakra, although not without an intense pain that hit him in time with his chakra usage, "But... there's just something I need you to understand..."

Karin leaned over him, too enraptured by his acknowledgment of her never ending love.

The chakra restraints made a _crack!_ as they fell apart.

"I don't love you."

Karin's body made a heavy _thump _that seemed to reverberate throughout the tiny glass enclosure they were in as he slammed her against the right wall. His right forearm was on her neck and his hips pinned her in place.

The IV in his right arm had dragged down his arm and stopped under his wrist, exposing the red matter under his skin. Red stained Karin's top and she soon felt it as it quickly seeped through and stained the skin of her chest underneath.

She often spoke of the sight of Sasuke making her breathless, but he had literally just knocked the wind out of her.

"S-Sasuke-kun..."

Sasuke had failed to pin her arms away from him.

Classic mistake.

He hardly had the time to stop the little needle that she stabbed into his side.

"You made me do this."

* * *

Karin was crying when Sakura stumbled into the room.

"Do you see what you made me do? ARE YOU HAPPY, YOU SELFISH BITCH?"

There was a very large psychiatric ward in Konoha's hospital—Sakura knew that well. Karin was screaming and flailing with saliva flying from her mouth and crying hysterically like a verteran ninja traumatized by the horrors of war. She was so much different from the controlled, hostile woman that had forced Sakura to watch as she had worshipped the body of the man laying, writhing in pain on the floor behind Karin.

It made Sakura snap to attention and remember why she had just sprinted towards what looked to be a private study area with a makeshift hospital room in the first place.

She needed to get to Sasuke.

Sakura stepped forward, planning to evade Karin, but she shouldn't have even bothered.

Neji's palm ran through her chest before her left foot could follow her right.

"Neji..."

A pained groan caught her attention and Sakura rushed towards Sasuke's fallen form, and waves of nausea hit her as she saw the dragged IV still lodged underneath his medial antebrachial vein.

Sakura had once put the small intestine of a shinobi back in place after he had been vivisected by a deranged serial killer with the medical knowlege of a professional and the mental unrest of a psychopath, yet seeing even the slightest scratches on Sasuke, Naruto or Kakashi made her insides churn.

Sasuke's body convulsed on the floor beneath her and Sakura sprinted into action. His breaths were shallow, but his pulse was strong and fast, begetting the internal problem. Sakura tried to muster up the healing power needed to scan Sasuke's insides and fix the problem and just barely had enough.

Sasuke was going into cardiac arrest and it was because the kunoichi that had been run through by Neji's hand had given him a shot of Potassium Chloride Concentrate.

Among medical ninja, it was a well known fact that a shot of the deadly liquid would lead to hyperkalemia, often leading to heart attacks and death if not treated quickly enough. Insulin, produced by the beta cells of the islets of Lagerhans, which were dispersed in the pancreatic follicles, was used by the body to regulate potassium levels.

It was a long shot but she had to stimulate the beta cells of the pancreas in order to filter out all of the excess potassium in his system. If he didn't...

Sasuke would die.

And there was no getting around the fact that his blood would stay on her hands.

* * *

Shizune rubbed her eyes in the comfortable dimness of the room and leaned back in the padded chair she'd sat in for hours, observing Sakura's notes over and over again. The petal haired woman had long ago installed a light dimmer in the fixtures of her office, fixing the issue of the customarily harsh lighting of the hospital.

Everything was so obvious now that Shizune had confirmed it with Sakura's notes.

She hadn't found the chance to tell Tsunade about her discovery, being so engrossed in the meticulous notes and calculations of Sakura's medical files.

Shizune pondered on Tsunade's whereabouts and decided that she wouldn't be able to find her master. Most of her musings and mournings over Sakura usually came to suffocate her with regret during the night. It would be best if she waited until the morning.

In the meantime, she could organize the antidote for Dokubutsu Kanri so they would be able to treat those in Konoha that had been infected, like Lee, Kiba, and—

"Shizune-san..."

—Ino.

Shizune smiled at the blonde that had just walked into Sakura's office.

"Ino-san, can I help you?"

Ino's face had no expression on it, which put Shizune off and alerted her that something was obviously wrong.

The mind-control jutsu specialist walked to the front of Sakura's desk and stopped, staring blankly at the medic nin sitting down.

Shizune barely had time to blink before a pale fist came swinging down on her.

* * *

The sensation of healing was cool and hot at the same time. It felt like waking up a sleeping limb, but it also eased all the muscles of their previous tension.

This, Sasuke half-heartedly noted, was nothing like that.

It felt like someone had attached a vacuum cleaner to somewhere on his side and was burning him with a branding iron. He could feel his heart beating too fast for his own good and the ground was disappearing under him, leaving him without a sense of where he was. All he could latch on to was the voice somewhere around him coaxing him to stay awake.

But... he couldn't.

He just... couldn't.

"Please! Sasu—"

His eyes opened on their own and he took in the scene through the fringe his eyelashes made. There was a white ceiling and a light from somewhere above burned his eyes. He got relief when a pink curtain obscured his view of the world around him.

It seemed his last moments would be filled with pink.

He wanted to laugh. It seemed to be some sort of sick cosmic joke that, before he left the earth, he would be taunted with images and voices of the things he would soon be deprived of...

/

"Sasuke, come on!"

"Don't be such a scaredy cat, Teme!"

Kakashi didn't bother to taunt Sasuke, in hopes that his pride would be wounded enough to join them. He just creased his eye in a manifestation of a smile and turned pointedly downward in Sasuke's direction.

They were crowded around Sasuke as he laid on the soft grass below him, Naruto smiling at him teasingly and Sakura smiling widely while wriggling her outstretched fingers for added effect.

"No."

Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi shared a collective look, straightened their backs and started to walk away.

The vein on his forehead twitched.

Those idiots knew he hated when people ignored him.

"Hn."

Naruto was the first to turn around while Sakura and Kakashi giggled conspiratorially behind him.

"Yes, teme?"

Naruto elongated the 'e' sound in the 'yes' and Sakura broke out into an unruly fit of giggles.

Kakashi put his hand over his masked mouth.

Tch, _idiots_.

"If you absolutely need me to come... I guess I have no choice."

Twitch.

Naruto "_whoop!_"-ed with his right fist in the air and then starts ed to walk away with Sakura and Kakashi.

Sakura called out to him from up ahead as he stood up and dusted his shinobi pants.

"I hope you're wearing underwear, Sasuke! Because it's not just regular poker with Team Gai!"

Somewhere, Naruto burst into a series of wild laughter.

Sasuke pinched the space between his eyebrows.

He didn't bring enough underwear to a mission _once. _

_Once._

_/_

He could only trust Naruto or Kakashi with something this serious.

And Kakashi was out of town.

So he had no choice.

"Remember, dobe. It's the red amaryllis flower. Only get one and make sure Ino puts it in a vase. A clear, glass one. Sakura likes—"

"To see the stem, I know, I know. Geez, teme. I won't mess this up—"

"And put it—"

"—On her office desk, I know!"

"And—"

"Teme!"

Sigh.

"Look, I won't mess this up. I promise. I don't know why this is so important for you guys, but I'll make sure it goes perfectly."

And with that, Sasuke picked up his traveling pack and left for his mission.

When he returned, he was only half surprised that Naruto had left it on the windowsill of Sakura's window that he left open, allowing it to get knocked over by a high speed messenger pigeon, which resulted in the vase falling and breaking into a million pieces, leaving Sakura to clean up the mess when she got into her office the next morning.

At least he got the right flower and vase part right...

/

"You were right."

Kakashi lifted up his head and shut his book with a small _snap_.

Kakashi knew he was right and Sasuke knew that. Revenge had left him more hollow than a wine cask and, with the war over, Sasuke could finally feel the emptiness of his body actually weigh him down.

Fires were still smoking in the background and Sakura was still healing the fatally injured and Naruto was still mourning over the crumbled body of his father.

Kakashi was sitting on a fallen tree, as if all was right with the world.

"I know, Sasuke."

Sasuke didn't move to sit down beside him.

He just..._ couldn't_.

So, he walked away, but it made him feel a little bit better that Kakashi knew what he was talking about.

/

The same curtain of pink was in front of his eyes and this time he did chuckle.

"Sakura... my biggest... regret..."

/

Sakura had a toned back. It was clear of blemishes and the only thing that marred that pale expanse was a silver scar that had a twin on the front side of her body.

He had never been more glad for an Akatsuki's death.

In the aftermath of sex, he liked to rub his knuckles against it. He liked the feeling of the skin to skin contact and he knew she did too by the way she always leaned her cheek against his soft pillows and sighed contentedly.

"I love you, Sasuke."

They met eyes and he leaned in to kiss her on her wide forehead, admiring the way the lazy curve of her lips when he pulled back.

/

Itachi's words to him were entirely too right. In the last moments of his death, he came to realize what he was.

He was a member of Team Seven.

He was a Konoha shinobi.

But he was also a coward.

His biggest regret was not telling Haruno Sakura he loved her.

* * *

This is in dedication to **Masashi Kishimoto**, who has been on point with his chapters the past couple of weeks, as well as all the **new followers** and **favorite-ers** (?) that enjoy this story.

(TEAM SEVEN OMG.)

Drop a review!

Until next time.

xx mm.


	22. Breaking

**A/N:** Okay, so I don't know if you guys have noticed, but my chapters have been getting progressively longer. That's because I want to get far enough along in the story that I can start working on** two new stories** I have had in mind for a while. Both are multi-chapter fics and one is **KakaSaku**, while the other is **SasuSaku**. The **SasuSaku** one is going to be a** HighSchool AU** while the **KakaSaku** fic will be **post-canon AU**. I know, I know... On my profile, it says I mostly hate** HighSchool AUs**, but I'm trying to explore new things and why not do that by trying something I hate?

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XXII

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

**Extra note: **I didn't think I'd have to clarify this, but whenever you see a division using a ( / ) , a _slash_, it means you are going to read a flashback until you see the _slash_ again, which means the flashback has ended or is changing scenes. If it seems like a flashback, it's a flashback. Okay, that is all.

**Extra Extra note: **I haven't been having the best couple of weeks. You'll be able to tell by the mood of this chapter.

* * *

External wounds required a trained eye that knew where to direct healing energy.

Internal problems were a bit trickier.

Healing energy becomes a sort of extension of your own body, your own hands. Sakura knows this well. Her leafy lighted fingers know what to do and where to go and what cells to stimulate and what enzyme to manipulate. Her fingers felt everything. _Everything._

That included the shallow movements of Sasuke's lungs, struggling to keep up with the rapid pounding of his heart. She could feel the _lub-lub-lub-lub _sound of its pumping under her touch. Even with her hands on his pancreas, she could feel the processes of his body and feel the rapid circulation of nutrients and oxygen begin to falter and suddenly there wasn't enough oxygen, the blood in his heart stopped moving so quickly and—

"Sakura... my biggest... regret..."

She knew he wasn't aware of his actions. That he wasn't aware of the fact that a bloody arm she had already healed reached up to stroke the left side of her face. He was...so..._so_ heart-breakingly gentle as he smeared her face with his blood in the familiar movement of stroking his thumb on the top of her cheek and running the rest of his fingers down her hairline and across her jaw, stopping suddenly on her mouth.

—Then she felt nothing except an invisible scissor cut the fragile semblance of hope she'd been holding onto.

She didn't even register the taste of his blood on her lips before Sakura keeled over, grasped her swollen stomach, and heaved her own blood. She didn't even stop to spit the saliva-blood mixture soaking into the taste buds of her tongue. She only sat, covered in liquid red, and called for him in the most pitiful way...

Just like the night he left.

* * *

With one last look at the dark sky, Tsunade despaired at the lack of stars she'd seen as she made her way back to her office.

Naruto's chakra, usually so bright and uplifting, the warmest embrace she could think of, was so subdued and filled with melancholy it plunged her mood into further depression.

He was rifling through her drawers and wasn't even bothering to hide the fact. Surely, he could sense her presence on the roof and had just lost all his discretion—not that he had much of it to lose—to the desperation he felt to save the rest of his team. She honestly didn't know how he had kept himself from looking for Team 13's mission details before. Maybe it was the helplessness he felt at walking into the room Sakura had been taken from, thinking that if he had just been a few hours _earlier_...

Things like the abduction of his comrades never kept Naruto down for so long. He was usually the one to jump at the chance to be hero, as his fate as Child of the Prophecy prescribed. A few months ago he would've rallied to get all of Konoha 12 together to get his missing precious people back.

Things were different this time around.

Team Seven wasn't the only team that had suffered a loss.

Team Eight was down to just Shino.

Team Ten was down to only Choji.

Team Gai had only Tenten left.

Their sensei—Kakashi, Kurenai, Asuma, and Gai—were either dealing with the loss, too preoccupied with their own personal lives, dead, or away on a mission, respectively.

Naruto needed supporters—a detail usually overlooked by everyone that spoke of Naruto's battlefield prowess and accomplishments. Naruto fed off their energy. Naruto only had them by his side.

Without that energy, how could he fight? Without his precious people, who could pick him up when he was on his back, crying his eyes out?

The world just worked like that. Even Naruto wasn't invincible and she hadn't forgotten that.

But it seems he had just about gotten sick and tired of waiting for people to come back home that just _wouldn't_ and _couldn't_.

Tsunade wondered what she would say to Naruto once she entered her office. Would she enter at all? The smooth, glazed wood of her door was already at her palm and all she had to do was _yank_ and meet Naruto's eyes, that were probably watery and darker with misery, but harder with the determination and perseverance in him that just _would not_ take_n_ for an answer.

A loud _thump_ signaled Naruto's meeting with the floor of her office and she almost groaned.

The idiot had tried to pull open the middle drawer of her desk and was stuck to the floor with one of the traps she had set long ago. It had never gone off before but _of course_ Naruto would be the first.

Yet, no matter how she tried, she couldn't be mad. The same agony and desperation he felt was shared in her own heart.

Team Seven meant something different to the both of them, but the effect was the same.

For Naruto, it meant family.

For her, it meant redemption. It was a sort of twisted compensation for her own team falling apart, leaving her alone and alive.

Tsunade pulled her door open and stepped towards Naruto without haste. She could hear his noises of struggle and his whining, until it was replaced with a different kind of sound.

Sobbing.

As she had caught him doing many times after the announcement of Jiraiya's death, Tsunade knew Naruto was not one to scream when he was in despair. He would isolate himself and then let the tears drip down his face in silent streams of sadness.

Sakura was the one who struggled to keep the noises of sorrow to herself when she cried, not Naruto.

That was why it struck her so deeply to be able to _hear_ Naruto's sobbing while he gave up the struggle and just buried his face into the floor, possibly looking for a way to disappear.

Tsunade stopped the flow of her chakra, releasing the energy that bonded him to the floor, but he didn't move.

In a reality not many were aware of, Tsunade couldn't bear to see Naruto in pain. She knew he'd had enough pain in his life already. She knew how hard it was to live life like he did everyday—with a smile. That's why she had lived in a pool of pessimism for so long until she had met the little blonde ball of enthusiasm. It was just easier that way.

Naruto was like the little brother she had lost.

Naruto was like the ray of hope she couldn't help but see in a stifling darkness.

Naruto was just… _Naruto._

She had kicked the crap out of him enough times to know that his body hid something not many others had—a core that was _purely_ good.

Good.

It was the only right way to describe him.

And that was why she kneeled beside him on the cold floor of her office and rubbed soothing circles into his back, indulging him in the physical comforting she knew he needed.

"What if… what if I can't save them?" Naruto dragged his face to the side to look at her.

His eyes were half lidded, but his whites were rosy and the blue looked darker, just like she had imagined.

Tsunade wasn't a liar. She couldn't tell Naruto everything would be alright and he would get to them in time because there was an outstanding chance that the two missing members of Team Seven were already dead, along with so many others of his generation.

So, she didn't answer him.

"I've spent so long…I've been feeling empty. I felt like I was missing something. Sasuke left and I thought… I thought Sakura-chan was _sick _when she was _pregnant_. Kakashi-sensei… he and Sakura-chan…" Naruto's eyes closed tightly and he grimaced, swallowed down a lump in his throat, "We lied to her for so long… I tried to kill him. I wanted Sasuke to die. I wanted to _kill_ him. I wanted him _dead_. What does that make me?"

Naruto's arms moved to his sides and pushed himself up, sitting on the floor. His hands supported him as he hunched over under the weight of his worries and his head lagged forward, the shaggy blonde hair covering a clear view of his face, yet making him look so much like his father.

"We haven't been a real team for a while now… but they've been gone for so long and now I realize that _this…" _Naruto's fist came to bang over his heart, "this throbbing _pain_ in my chest that won't leave is what emptiness feels like. Now that I know what it is to love… it hurts more to lose it than being lonely."

Naruto had never looked so… _defeated_.

Tsunade slowly moved towards Naruto—she subconsciously compared the experience to dealing with a wounded animal—and grasped one of his hands. With the lights off in the office, only the shine from the moon outside illuminated the tears on Naruto's face for her view.

Naruto couldn't see her clearly.

The water in his eyes blurred his entire view, visually impairing his view of the woman seated on the floor before him.

Tsunade reached into the sleeve of her haori, ignoring the instincts that told her she could get into all kinds of trouble for what she was about to do, that there were reasons—very _very_ good reasons—as to why she hadn't done this early, that it could make everything twice as bad as it already was...

Then he felt the cylindrical object being placed in his hand before Tsunade curled his fingers around it and placed his hand in his lap.

"Then go get them back. For the both of us."

The next thing he knew, she was gone.

* * *

Neji could almost see Sakura's heart burst. She resembled a broken angel of sorts—her wings cut off and melting into the blood that stained the floor. She had thrown herself onto Sasuke's chest, grabbing at the front of his hospital wear, screaming and yelling for him, as if it could bring him back.

Nothing could bring him back.

The backs of his eyes burned.

It _couldn't_ be that he felt all of this overwhelming anger and sorrow for the dead shinobi on the floor. It couldn't be.

It just..._ couldn't._

Granted, his relationship with Uchiha Sasuke had started out none too great. In fact, it only got worse as time progressed. He had almost lost his life on the Sasuke retrieval mission and the man had attacked his home.

(Also granted, he wasn't in the right state of mind at the time.)

However, even he couldn't ignore the subtle efforts of the Uchiha to integrate himself into Konoha once he returned. He took on suicidal missions for the village. He made an effort to reconnect with his teammates, even through his social and emotional deficiencies.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, Sasuke Uchiha had the hope of almost getting everything he'd ever lost.

A family to live for.

A home to return to.

Someone alive to love him unconditionally.

Then, five months ago, Uchiha Sasuke had no choice but to set that chance down to protect everything he could've had.

He didn't know what to think when he was summoned to the Hokage's office and spotted his cousin, Shikamaru, and Sasuke in the same room. He understood the repercussions of accepting the mission—_any_ mission for that matter—but he didn't understand that this mission would affect his life and the lives of those he strived to protect, whether it was out of professional duty or a genuine feeling of camaraderie.

/

Sasuke had taken what could've been a fatal blow to Hinata's side in his shoulder and was currently grimacing silently as she cleaned the wound and prepared to heal him.

It was strange, really.

Hinata had been mending him at a tree five yards away from where the Uchiha had been finishing off a jounin-rank group of rogue ninja with the assistance of Shikamaru. One of the enemy nin had managed to slink away, undetected, and had aimed at Hinata, but instead he had sunk his tanto into Sasuke's shoulder and gotten his head sliced off his body in one clean sweep courtesy of his Kusanagi.

It had caught Neji off guard to the point where as soon as that ninja appeared at Hinata's side, he could already envision her body being run through and his body jolted in a panic that caused him to bump into her.

She had almost died and it was because he was careless enough to believe the ambush would be dealt with without any consequence.

Neji leaned forward on his knees and eyed the pair as Sasuke tested out his newly healed joint, nodding in thanks to Hinata. The Hyuga heiress sat at Sasuke's side and lightly touched him on the forearm to grab his attention before he moved his gaze to the fire. The flames cast a light on her reddened face and she whispered a small "thank you" to the dark eyed shinobi.

Shikamaru closed his eyes in silence, above watching what was obviously something nerve-wracking for Hinata.

Sasuke's eyes softened and he nodded, slower, but shorter this time. He was obviously looking in Hinata's direction, but it was clear he wasn't seeing fair skin and eyes. He stood.

"I'll take first watch."

Some time later, after Hinata and Shikamaru had fallen asleep, Neji flash stepped to the branch the former avenger was seated on, with a knee bent and a hand casually hanging off the joint.

Sasuke took his time in lifting his head and meeting his eyes.

His eyes were curious things. Dark and to the point you couldn't distinguish his pupils from his irises, they were almost impossible to read. He could only assume his teammates had more luck in deciphering the meanings and emotions behind the inky black.

A dark eyebrow quirked in questioning.

"Thank you. Hinata-sama could have died without your assistance. On behalf of the Hyuga clan, I thank you."

Neji wasn't thanking him on behalf of the Hyuga clan. Neji was thanking him on behalf of himself that the Uchiha had almost taken a fatal stabbing for someone he'd probably never talked to in his life. That he managed to save someone important to him.

That was when Sasuke replied to him a faraway voice that lent more distance between them than was actually there.

"Protecting the medic is something I take very seriously."

/

That was the moment Neji started to doubt the ex-missing nin less than he usually did, and, from the few fragments leading up to his last memory, jumping in the trees, Neji could recall Sasuke guarding him and Hinata and Shikamaru the best he could, as if to compensate for a lack of something else.

Neji had fought alongside him with the new beginnings of a genuine camaraderie.

He looked back at the pink haired kunoichi on the floor, clutching to the man with an ardor that would've hurt him had he still been alive, and eyed the swollenness beneath her gown.

Sasuke died without ever getting back what he lost.

The unfairness of it all made Neji's eyes burn more.

With anger or the sting of injustice, he didn't know.

* * *

His lungs burned. His eye burned. His legs burned.

Oxygen deprivation. Dryness of the wind slapping his face. Running straight for he didn't know how long.

Except he _did_ know how long they'd been running. And it had been too long. Not because they were exhausted, because they weren't. The adrenaline running through their veins as well as the aftereffects of the two soldier pills they each took eliminated that problem.

They were traveling at an inhuman speed and it just wasn't fast enough.

The trip to Kabuto's base took average shinobi three days of travel, including rest, meals, and stopping by sundown along with the preparation of traps around a secure camping site.

The trip to Kabuto's base took average shinobi two days if they travel until dark at a regular pace.

The trip to Kabuto's base took a full day for an elite shinobi squad if they traveled through the night, without stopping.

At their pace, it would take them six hours of continuous running.

Kakashi wanted to see how Naruto was doing but it was so easy to hit a tree at the speed they traveled at, plus he didn't need confirmation of Naruto being beside him. The traveling was making him angry.

And anger was fueling his steps with small remnants of red chakra.

When Naruto met him at the gate, he'd been waiting for half an hour and was already contemplating stopping by Tsunade's office for an attempt at getting the scroll himself. Then, as soon as he'd taken the first steps to go further into the village, Naruto appeared, scroll in hand, with four others at his back. Aburame Shino, Akimichi Choji, Tenten, and Rock Lee, as motivated as ever, saluted him while Naruto tossed him the scroll Tsunade had given him.

Apparently, it showed up just as he was about to give up, as Naruto had told him.

He and Naruto were in the front while Shino stayed center, and Tenten and Choji brought up the rear.

Kakashi pushed off of the next branch with a renewed vigor that had nothing to do with the soldier pills they had all downed.

He was on his way to get his team.

* * *

Sakura could feel the blood under her going cold as time passed and she kept her head buried in Sasuke's chest. There was blood _everywhere—_her hair, her lips, her legs...

She was covered in red.

Sakura lifted her head up to look around Kabuto's office. Neji was frozen to the point where she could see him shaking. Karin had a gaping hole in her just a yard from his feet.

Sasuke was dead.

As a medical ninja, it was her duty and privilege to never stop medical treatment until the lives of her party members came to an end.

Sakura looked down at Sasuke's pale face and grimaced at the yellow bruising along his jaw, the healing cut that went from his collar bone to the right corner of his mouth. His chapped, split lips were parted but he wasn't breathing.

Sasuke was dead.

The rules dictated she leave him alone and continue on her task of finding her way out of white prison Neji and she were in, as well as countless other nin, in order to get help.

But Sasuke was dead. He wasn't breathing and he no longer had a pulse and somehow she always knew she'd been the one to be looking down at him when he died. It was her worst nightmare. It was her _reality_.

A cord in her had been cut and now she felt her edges were fraying, her being untangling. She could almost see herself looking over the scenario. Out of body experiences weren't real, she knew, but could it be possible that half of her had died and that part of her spirit was watching over the scene?

/

It was a sad scene, to say the least.

Sasori had hair just like his father and it drooped to fall in his eyes with the slackness of his dead neck allowing his head to fall forward.

The tips of two of his own poisoned swords protruded through his chest and penetrated the only human part of him - his heart.

Sakura looked over at Chiyo's heavy breathing and put a hand to her taut abdomen that was surely scarred.

"You saved my life…"

Chiyo turned to look at her.

The woman's crow's feet became more evident in the contours of her face as she tipped her head towards Sakura conspiratorially and laughed heartily, coughing a bit with the energy she had just used to heal the young medic nin.

"Sakura, dear… Your death would've been a disappointment of the worst kind."

She stared, bewildered by the older woman's words.

She was acknowledging _her_? Lady Chiyo was acknowledging her…

"I may not be too fond of your master," Sakura pondered on how the two became acquainted with one another, "but I would be foolish to let you lose your life because of my refusal to save you…Especially after you saved me."

Chiyo then said words Sakura could never forget.

"When the time comes, give your life to someone you love."

Sakura leaned her weight on elbows, giving her back a break from keeping its usual pose.

The sat on the broken stones jutting from the ground of the Akatsuki hideout for a moment, breathing hard.

When the time came, she would give her life to someone important to her. Someone she loved. Someone she always _loved_.

"How did you do it?"

Running a hand under her shirt to feel the jagged line that told of her being impaled, Sakura could hardly fathom she had been so close to death just minutes ago. A short time ago, a poisoned sword was shoved into her gut and her body was going numb and her vision was spotty and she couldn't breathe and—

"Just…_how_?"

_/_

"Someone you love... Someone I love..."

Why were her hands working so much faster than her brain? Why was she making seals she'd only been shown once? Why was she so ready to do this?

Sasuke had used his last words to say she was his biggest regret. It was too bad, so sad that she wouldn't be able to ask him why.

Somehow, she felt Neji's hands on her shoulders despite the mess of her nerves and remembering chakra ratios and deciding she was okay with—

"Sakura... we have to go. Kabuto is... he's probably on his way back."

His voice was unsteady and it made her stop and ponder when Neji had ever been unsettled by a bit of blood.

Neji's hands gently pulled on her shoulders in a way that was as comforting as he could muster.

But she knew he needn't bother.

"I know it's painful, but I need you to help me—"

"Sakura—"

"Neji. Give me your hands."

She fixed him with a look. It was too firm to belong on her face and he'd only seen it one other time before.

It was during the Shinobi War. She was healing a gaping hole in his gut and when he told her it was too late, she refused to listen to his words and at the time, he had hardly been acquainted with Sakura.

Against all odds, she saved him and it was the crazy, determined look in her eye that had allowed him to let go and allow her to do so.

It was terrible to use it against him now, of all times, and she knew it. But this was so much bigger than right or wrong.

Sasuke was so much bigger than right or wrong.

That's why Sakura knew in her heart she wouldn't regret saving him.

Even if she lost herself in the process.

* * *

Okay, so lately I've been getting a lot of PMs from people who want more SasuSaku and less of everything else. To those people, I just want to remind you that I'm not a crazy romance person at heart and I like to keep things a little more realistic (as realistic as fanfiction can be) than some of the things I or you have all read. I write to please you, but I can't publish something I'm not feeling. And I don't feel the epic romance the overshadows everyone else. Plus, Team Seven is a MAJOR part of the story.

Okay, this chapter is in dedication to **grasping-at-straws1**, who has become a very good friend to me on ffnet. You're a cool chick.

Also, thank you to **new followers** of this story! I hope you guys are enjoying my updates and drop a review if you'd like :)

Until next time,

xx mm.


	23. Cold Reunion

**A/N:** I had to update this tonight. It's short but I'm breaking a stereotype. I think that counts for something.

**Title: **Dicta Prius, Chapter XXI

**Summary: **"I already love you more than I can stand. That doesn't mean I have to drown in it." The typical love story becomes a bit more complicated after they finally get together and Sasuke falls apart. —SasuSaku, Team Seven

**Genre: **Drama-twisted Romance

**Characters/Pairings: **SasuSaku & Team Seven

**Status: **Incomplete

* * *

The catharsis that came with letting go of his life was surprisingly lacking—the pain, the invasion of another chakra in his system, the fear of upsetting people with his death, the pressure of living that laid on his chest heavier than his heart that was a deadweight on his upper left torso was all gone now, but what was he left with?

Sasuke could feel his body on the cold, hard floor of somewhere, but he found he couldn't see anything but a ceiling with patterns that looked much like the view he had when he used to fall in the living room while trying to hurry and put on his shoes so he could follow Itachi out of the door. Sakura always laid on the floor of his living room to watch television and he wondered if she saw the ceiling differently than he in the dark that continually plagued his home. Sakura liked to shut off the lights as much as she could, saying that it was such a waste of energy and natural light to rely too much on a light bulb.

He suspected she only had this attitude because of the glaring lights at the hospital she was constantly holed up in, saving people and allowing small parts of her to waste away, only to repair them when she left. She never talked about how much she disliked being in the hospital, but he suspected that once it became more about the elders wanting her required paperwork than saving the son of a civilian family, she started to let go of the fantasy that being a doctor was the most fulfilling career within her ninja talents she could've chosen. He always thought that she was so battle weary because of it.

Sakura didn't like killing. It just agitated her moral gravel, like the scrape of the knee every kindergartner got from playing to clumsily with others in their age group.

He wondered if, now that he was gone, if she would lock herself up in the hospital, desperate to overcompensate for his passing or if she would quit the medical field completely and think herself useless.

He remembered Kakashi and he always agreed on one thing: All soft skin and pretty hair, Sakura wasn't destined to be a killer, but a healer she was. She had caught them talking about her one day, and in a fit of rage, had locked herself up somewhere—maybe with someone, but he truly doubted that—probably fuming over their critique that went on behind her back.

He never did find out what she did those two weeks.

Now he was dead, and he would never know. It was so supremely comical that he would experience such nostalgic thoughts when he was already dead with no reason to ponder the living world anymore, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help but think of Sakura and only her.

After all, pink was the last color he saw with his living eyes.

Sasuke scoffed. Wouldn't it just be perfect if she were the one to watch him dying?

Nonsense—he shook his head at the ridiculous thought—what a ridiculous thought.

Sakura was in Konoha and they would only be reunited briefly at his funeral.

"Sasuke-chan, please get off the floor. Dinner is ready."

Oh the cruelty of it all that now he was dead, he would be plagued with his mother's voice and such familiar words.

What had he been expecting? A fucking _picnic_? It was obvious that he was in hell.

It was then that he smelled it.

Stewed cabbage.

He hated stewed cabbage and would always try to put some on Itachi's plate when they were younger…

Could it truly be?

Sasuke shot up like the gunshot at the start of a race and followed the smell of dinner.

Imagine his surprise when he came upon his childhood kitchen, where the only empty seat was next to his brother, who looked as he had before his death, only healthier—all tall and strong and 21 years old, across from his mother who hadn't changed a bit, who was seated next to his father with the stern face as he had every day for the first eight years of his life.

The only years of his life his parents had been alive for.

Sasuke quickened his steps and sat in seat, right in front of the cabbage.

The time to question had died with him.

* * *

Just a little more.

Just a little more and she could save him.

"Sakura…"

Neji spoke through a steely voice that almost covered up the massive pain he was enduring with the amount of chakra he was exerting to, unknowingly, help her sustain the "One's Own Life Reincarnation" and use his byakugan.

"They're coming."

"Neji, I don't care if Kabuto is outside of the door to this office."

The tears that prickled at her eyes out of relief were hot and happy, born out of her own irrational need to make herself believe she was doing to right thing.

If she managed to save Sasuke—_when_ she saved him, she repeated herself, erasing her earlier doubt—Neji would make sure that they avoided Kabuto.

More importantly, he would make sure Sasuke got there _alive_.

Now, all she needed was to try a little harder.

Just a little more.

Sakura, lost in her own hysteria over saving Sasuke, didn't realize that something wicked was coming towards them, no matter how much louder Neji's warnings got.

And at the rate they were going pouring chakra into Sasuke's body, they wouldn't stand a chance against it.

* * *

"Little brother, please don't eat all the cabbage."

Itachi looked at his brother with eyes that held the wonders of the world when Sasuke was younger.

Now, they were filled with warm that reminded him of wearing a thick sweater in the cold.

Sasuke had been shoveling cabbage into his mouth for the past five minutes, not bothering to wonder or question or rationalize the impossibilities of being able to see his dead family, let alone eat dinner with them.

Sasuke hated cabbage when they were younger and Itachi, as well as Mikoto and Fugaku, knew that Sasuke still hated it. Yet, he continued to chew the mass in his mouth.

The youngest Uchiha reluctantly passed the stewed cabbage over to his brother and Mikoto looked at him worriedly, noting how the candlelit table accentuated the faint shadows under Sasuke's eyes that looked inherited now and the movement of his sharp jaw.

Her eyes strayed over to the three bright sources of light in the middle of their vast spread, remembering the only reason why they were being allowed to see Sasuke in the first place.

"Sasuke, sweetie…" Mikoto leaned over to place her hand on Sasuke's raised chopsticks, taking them and placing them flat on the table with an assuredness that made him look at his mother in wonder, "Slow down. You're dead, as of right now. You don't need to eat."

Sasuke couldn't help but note the icy coldness of her skin and how it contrasted to his, slightly warmer, pallor. It made him frown and scrutinize her more carefully, listen to her words and turn them over in his head.

"Okaasan…" Again, Sasuke couldn't help but notice the acrid taste that using a honorific left in his mouth after years of not uttering a single one, with the exception of conversations with Tsunade. His bitter saliva took the euphoric edge off of seeing his family once again.

"What do you mean 'as of right now'?"

* * *

Homura and Koharu's presence in the hospital was never a welcomed one. They showed up to either question Sakura's expertise after the occasional death or send news of a budget cut.

At least, the second was usually done by letter.

They stood in the hospital room as Tsunade sat beside the unconscious patient's bedside, reading over the notes Shizune had brought to her attention before Naruto departed to Sound.

The Fifth Hokage hadn't looked at them at all—not even when they entered the room.

"Tsunade. You continue to prove your novicehood with the impulsive decisions you make regarding the jinchuriki and that apprentice of yours. The ninja roster has been whittled down considerably already in the past year. Maybe the standards of our shinobi have steadily deteriorated since you assumed Hiruzen's chair."

Shizune shifted uncomfortably in her seat beside Tsunade, eyeing the patient that had been admitted a few hours ago.

Her master hadn't said a thing to them as they rambled on about her insolence as the village's leader, yet she didn't look the least bit irritated or aggravated.

In fact, she looked smug.

"Well, Tsunade? What do you have to say for yourself?"

The godaime's right ponytail was pushed behind her shoulder as she stood up to leave the room, refusing to say a word about Sakura's deadly poison, Kabuto's theft, or that Ino Yamanaka—the unconscious kunoichi in the hospital bed in front of her—had given her the human evidence she already needed to convince Konoha's ninja clans of one thing.

They needed to send reinforcements to Sound.

* * *

Fugaku always had trouble showing affection to either of his children, Mikoto knew. In public, Fugaku was an emotionally deprived man, only intent on raising a suitable heir to his clan that would uphold the values of the Uchiha with a grace and power he would bestow unto him through rigorous training. In private, other things—things that had gotten them killed—had captured his attention.

When Itachi had put both of their bodies to rest, Fugaku no longer had an heir to train. He no longer had the coup d'état to plan. There was no time or need for worries of the living to occur to them, yet they still had children in the mortal world, so they spent their time watching over them.

Mikoto knew her husband and she knew him well. Watching Sasuke leave Konoha, a place that—no matter Fugaku's plans for the future while he was still alive—her husband took great pride in belonging to because of the inherent Uchiha pride passed from their ancestors, had hit him hard. Harder than it hit her, since she was still desperate to rationalize and see him as the little boy she'd last held him as at that time.

She'd mourned for years after her death at her inability to hold her youngest son one last time and let him know she was still there, watching over him as he trained with his perverted, Copy-Ninja sensei, blonde, loudmouthed best friend, and pink-haired _girl_—Mikoto always stressed to her husband that her being a girl made their relationship all the more different—teammate that he was always rushing to protect. She saw as he became a bit less lonely and a bit more inclined to not chase after his brother, who she _knew_ loved him with all he had—she was their _mother_, for Kami's sake.

Then Sasuke left.

And at first, she tried to understand and explain to Fugaku that he was _lost_, and that he would realize the error of his ways.

Fugaku didn't listen and he despaired at Sasuke's actions, knowing his son's intentions and motives before she even decided she wanted to contemplate them.

As she grew more in denial, Fugaku became even more saddened—no, not angry, never angry—by his son's actions and she knew that even after she came to terms with the damage done to Sasuke's morale, Fugaku never gave up the hope that he could speak with his second-born.

That is why it does not surprise her when he took the chance to speak.

"The Haruno—"

"Her name is Sakura, dear."

"Hn… Sakura-san is using a forbidden jutsu on your body in hopes that she can resurrect you. I never thought I'd see the day where a Hyuga decided to help an Uchiha."

Mikoto rolled her eyes and Itachi sighed, as if exhausted.

Even after waiting so long to talk to his son, there was no overstated affection in his stern baritone.

She watched as her son's face twisted in confusion and skepticism—the latter only lasted for a moment, she saw (Obviously, Sasuke remembered he didn't have a reason to doubt his father's word) before his face went into a neutral expression to cover his growing uncertainty.

It was quiet for a few minutes. So quiet, in fact, that the table became a bit reminiscent of their dinners as a family while they were all still alive.

Her son's head dipped low and the hand around his chopsticks tightened.

"Why are you appearing to me now? After so long… there have been so many times I've been on the brink of death since…" Sasuke grew silent once again with the memory of his brother slaying his parents and tensed even more.

Mikoto could feel her happiness dim a bit at the strongly silent persona her son adopted after so long of being deceived by those around him. She could also feel herself growing irritated with Sasuke's blatant refusal to comprehend that there was someone willing to die to bring him back to life at the moment.

"Little brother."

Her eldest son placed a hand on his brother's shoulders and she would've cried at the sight if she was physically able to.

She had always been a bit emotionally unstable.

Sasuke looked to his brother for guidance his entire life. Before the massacre, Sasuke idolized his brother. After it, Sasuke painted him as the ultimate antagonist in the story of his life, as well as the goal he aspired to achieve. After Itachi's death, Sasuke cried for him. After Itachi was truly released from Edo Tensei, Sasuke used him as a guide on how to live, rejoining Konoha.

Things were no different now, except for the fact that—Mikoto noted her dead son and her son that still had a chance to live—

"Things are different now. Mother and Father have refrained from meddling in your life until now because they knew they had to leave you to find your own way. But we were summoned now to appear to you in order to give you a choice."

"A… choice?"

Sasuke struggled to understand what was happening, but the feeling of his brother's hand—cold with death, yet warm with love—soothed his nerves somewhat and he started to feel the stinging of tears at the backs of his eyes.

Itachi's hand was so _cold_.

Itachi's eyes grew soft as he looked at his brother—at such a loss of what to do and what to believe. His still heart ached for him.

Mikoto found she couldn't stay seated any longer and quietly got up to round the low table.

"Sasuke…" Fugaku's voice reached everyone's ears and, out of reflex, Sasuke almost flinched away from the innate sternness of his father's baritone, "…You must choose. You can stay here with your mother," Mikoto moved behind her son and wrapped her arms around his middle, burying her nose into his back, "your brother," Itachi's hand tightened the slightest bit around his shoulder, "and I…"

There was a second where the Uchiha held their breath to see if Sasuke would jump at the chance to stay in the afterlife with them. When he didn't—impulsiveness was Naruto's area of expertise, not his—his father continued.

"Or, you can return to the life you had before and you can make everyone's efforts worthwhile. The Haruno—" "_Sakura_, honey." "—_Sakura-san_ is weak right now, in her…_delicate_ condition and the Hyuga is close to exhausting his reserves. There isn't much time Sasuke."

His head should be hurting right about now. He should have a raging headache with having to make this fucking decision and his heart should be pounding fast but all he could feel was the deadweight in his chest. Sasuke didn't like it. He despised it. After feeling empty for so long, after craving the warm touch of his mother and the gentle smile of his brother and the attention of his mother, Sasuke didn't want it anymore. His brothers lips were pale and washed out and his mother was cold, his father was hitting him with information that he wasn't sure was to guilt him or to encourage him, and most of all, he did not want to feel empty anymore.

Feeling empty reminded him of after the massacre and the days he spent without Team Seven. They were lonely nights without ramen or girly daisy chains or waiting for a pervert who was supposed to protect your life to show up.

When he woke up on the cold floor of his childhood home that hadn't gotten destroyed in the invasion of Pein, Sasuke felt he could deal with being dead as long as he had his family—as long as he had what he had fought to avenge for so long. As long as he had cabbage he hated on a low round table with a seat across from someone he spent years trying to get the attention of.

Now, he wanted nothing more than to do what his father told him.

_To make everyone's efforts worthwhile._

Especially Sakura's.

He mused before that it would've been funny for her to be the one to see him dying, but in reality—a reality he was accustomed to—Sasuke knew it was the farthest thing from funny.

In fact, it was horrible.

Worse than dying.

So much worse than dying.

Mikoto took his silence for what it was—acceptance.

Her cold hands gathered Sasuke up and held him as he shook with the force of his tears.

* * *

I honestly couldn't continue this from here.

I didn't feel right.

This whole chapter makes me sad and happy.

Read and review!

xx mm.


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